"Administrator Johnson has clearly overstated the progress made by the parties discussing the MNSRP," ISRI President Robin Wiener said. "Characterizing the progress made as only needing to ´hammer out the final details´ is, at the very least, overly optimistic."

The EPA is working with automobile dismantlers, recyclers, the steel industry and environmental groups, to address the safe removal of mercury switches from scrapped automobiles. Such switches potentially can release tons of mercury into the environment.

On March 21, Johnson said the groups were "working to hammer out the final details" and he expected "a national agreement in place within the coming weeks."