Groups Chide U.S. on Mercury Regulations

Groups Chide U.S. on Mercury Regulations

Aug 19 - Associated Press/AP Online

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - Environmentalists and two Maryland Democratic congressmen chastised the Bush administration Wednesday for proposed regulations they said will not do enough to reduce mercury contamination of Maryland rivers, lakes and the Chesapeake Bay.

"The Bush administration is trying ... by regulations to undo congressional law," Rep. Benjamin Cardin, who represents Maryland's 5th District, said. "Mercury is a dangerous air pollutant. There is no question about that."

Mercury is a toxin that interferes with development of the brain and the nervous system in fetuses, said Sarah Tomeo, a field representative for U.S. PIRG, a nonprofit, public interest advocacy group that is active in environmental issues.

Tomeo said the federal Centers for Disease Control estimates that because of mercury poisoning, 630,000 children are at risk each year for a range of problems including brain damage, learning disabilities, attention deficit and heart problems.

"This is no time for the Bush administration to be weakening health protections," she said.

EPA Administration Mike Leavitt said earlier this month that the regulations proposed by his agency will protect children and pregnant women without causing undue economic harm to coal-producing states.

Energy plants, especially those that burn coal, are a major source of mercury pollution

The Natural Resources Defense Council sued the EPA in 1992 trying to force it to regulate hazardous air pollutants from power plants. As a result, Carol Browner, who headed the EPA during the former Clinton administration, directed in late 2000 that mercury be regulated as a toxic hazardous substance requiring utilities to install "maximum achievable control technology" at each of nearly 500 coal-fired power plants in the nation.

Natural resources groups contend the regulations proposed by the Bush administration will weaken the federal Clean Air Act requirements.

"In my view, they are illegally trying to stop enforcement" of the Clean Air Act, Cardin said.

Rep. Christopher Van Hollen from Maryland's 8th District, in a statement read by one of his aides at a news conference at the Annapolis City Dock, said instead of enforcing Clean Air Act requirements, the Bush administration "is now surreptitiously trying to gut it - by regulatory slight-of-hand, slow-walking enforcement and cynical double speak."

Leavitt said the EPA still views mercury as a toxin. The former Utah governor has been re-examining the agency's mercury plan since his appointment to the EPA last November. The plan envisions a 70 percent cut in mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants by 2018, from the current 48 tons a year to 15 tons.

Beth McGee, senior scientist for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said the reductions in mercury contamination proposed by the EPA "are not enough, and they are not soon enough."

"Maryland and the bay states may be among the big losers," she said.

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