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Toxic mercury pollution is so pervasive that many Americans cannot safely eat fish caught in local waters. To date, the EPA, FDA, and at least 44 states have issued mercury-related fish consumption advisories warning people to limit or avoid consumption of various types of fish.
With mercury contamination widespread, we need strong mercury controls on power plants, the largest industrial source of mercury emissions in the U.S. Yet the Bush administration—at the behest of power companies—is taking both regulatory and legislative steps to roll back the Clean Air Act requirement that every power plant install controls to reduce mercury and other toxic air pollutants by the maximum possible extent. On the regulatory front, the administration has sought to avoid this requirement, announcing rules in March 2005 that allow power plants not only to buy and trade mercury “credits” but also to delay even modest mercury reductions until at least 2018. Legislatively, the administration has proposed the deceptively named “Clear Skies” initiative, an air pollution plan that would repeal the Clean Air Act’s maximum controls requirement and codify virtually the same weak “cap-and-trade” regulations for power plants that the administration just adopted.
A Brief Summary
Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that can affect the brain, heart, and immune system and that poses particular risks for children and developing fetuses. Even low-level exposure can cause learning disabilities, developmental delays, and other serious problems. Moreover, mounting evidence indicates that mercury increases the risk of heart attacks in adult men.
Old, dirty power plants are the nation’s largest industrial source of mercury, releasing 48 tons of mercury—41% of the national total—every year. Mercury from power plant smokestacks is washed out of the air by rain, snow, and dust into our waterways, where it accumulates in fish and typically reaches its highest concentrations in predator fish at the top of the aquatic food chain.
Mercury contamination is so pervasive that, to date, the EPA, FDA, and 44 states have issued mercury-related fish consumption advisories warning people to limit or avoid consumption of various types of fish. In half of the states, mercury warnings cover every lake and/or river in the state. The federal advisory, issued jointly by EPA and FDA in 2004, warns groups including pregnant women and children to avoid or limit their consumption of fish such as king mackerel and tuna. But even with these warnings in place, EPA scientists estimate that one in six women of childbearing age has enough mercury in her body to put her child at risk should she become pregnant.
Under the Clean Air Act, every power plant must install strict controls—called the “maximum achievable control technology”—to reduce their toxic pollution within a three-year time frame. For mercury, this should mean national reductions of about 90%—from 48 tons per year to 5 tons per year—by 2008.
Given that power plants are the largest industrial source of U.S. mercury emissions, strong enforcement of the Clean Air Act is critical to solving the problem of mercury contamination. Unfortunately, rather than protecting public health, the Bush administration is working to make both regulatory and legislative changes that would gut current law, allowing more mercury pollution from power plants over a much longer period of time than if we simply enforced the Clean Air Act.
To read more about the administration’s regulations, finalized in the spring of 2005, click here.
To read more about the administration-backed “Clear Skies” legislation, click here.
