[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 41 (Thursday, April 2, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3129-S3130]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. LEAHY:
  S. 1915. A bill to amend the Clean Air Act to establish requirements 
concerning the operation of fossil fuel-fired

[[Page S3130]]

electric utility steam generating units, commercial and industrial 
boiler units, solid waste incineration units, medical waste 
incinerators, hazardous waste combustors, chlor-alkali plants, and 
Portland cement plants to reduce emissions of mercury to the 
environment, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Environment 
and Public Works.


            Omnibus Mercury Emissions Reduction Act of 1998

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today I am introducing the ``Omnibus 
Mercury Emissions Reduction Act of 1998.'' As United States Senators, 
we all have a responsibility to build a nation for our children. As a 
recent grandfather, this commitment has never been more real for me. I 
am introducing this comprehensive piece of legislation to eliminate 
mercury--one of the last remaining poisons without a specific control 
strategy--from our air, our waters and our forests. By eliminating 
mercury from our natural resources, we will protect our nation's most 
important resource--our children and grandchildren.
  As we learned from the campaign to eliminate lead, our children are 
at the greatest risk from these poisons. I often ask myself how many 
Albert Einsteins have we lost in the last generation because of the 
toxics they have been exposed to? Just as with lead, we know that 
mercury has much graver effects on children at very low levels then it 
does on adults. The level of lead pollution we and our children breathe 
today is one-tenth what it was a decade ago. That figure by itself is a 
tribute to the success of the original Clean Air Act. I want to achieve 
the same results with mercury.
  Mercury is toxic in every known form and of utterly no nutritional 
value. At high enough levels it poisons its victims in terribly tragic 
ways. In Japan, victims of mercury poisoning came to be known as 
suffering from Minimata Disease, which took its name from the small 
Minimata Bay in which they caught fish for their food.
  For years, the Chisso Company discharged mercury contaminated 
pollution in the Bay, which was taken into the flesh of fish and then 
the people who ate them. Their disease was frightfully painful, causing 
tremors and paralysis, and sometimes leading to death. Thankfully, 
discharges of mercury like those in Minimata Bay have been eliminated. 
But a torrent of air pollution still needlessly pours this heavy metal 
into the air of North America, poisoning lakes and streams, forests and 
fields and--most importantly--our children. Mercury control needs to be 
a priority now because we know, without a doubt, of the neurological 
damage it causes.
  This is not to say that men, women and children are doubled over in 
agony as they were three decades ago in Japan. But wildlife are being 
killed--we know that endangered Florida panthers have been fatally 
poisoned by mercury and that loons are endangered as well. In Lake 
Champlain we now have fish advisories for walleye, trout and bass even 
though we have relatively no mercury emissions within our own state 
borders.
  Instead, we Vermonters are exposed to mercury and other pollutants 
that blow across Lake Champlain and the Green Mountains every day from 
other regions of the country. The waste incinerators and coal-fired 
power plants are not accountable to the people of Vermont and therefore 
a federal role is needed to control the pollution.
  That is part of the reason voters send us here. They expect Members 
of the Congress to determine what is necessary to protect the public 
health and the environment nationally, then require it. And in many 
cases, perhaps most, we have done that. But not with respect to 
mercury.
  Mr. President, what I propose is that we put a stop to this poisoning 
of America. It is unnecessary, and it is wrong. Mercury can be removed 
from products, and it has been done. Mercury can be removed from coal-
fired powerplants, and it should be done. With states deregulating 
their utility industries, this is the best opportunity to make sure 
powerplants begin to internalize the cost of their pollution. We cannot 
afford to give them a free ride into the next century at the expense of 
our children's health.
  So, too, should mercury be purged from chlor alkali plants, medical 
waste incinerators, municipal combustion facilities, large industrial 
boilers, landfills, lighting fixtures and other known sources.
  My bill directs EPA to set mercury emission standards for the largest 
sources of mercury emissions. The bill requires reducing emissions by 
95 percent, but it also lets companies choose the best approach to meet 
the standard at their facility whether through the use of better 
technology, cleaner fuels, process changes, or product switching.
  We will hear a lot of rhetoric about how much implementing this bill 
will cost. In advance of those complaints I want to make two points. 
First, when we were debating controls for acid rain we heard a lot 
about the enormous cost of eliminating sulphur dioxide. But what we 
learned from the acid rain program, is that when you give industry a 
financial incentive to clean up their act they will find the cheapest 
way. More often than not, assertions about the cost of controlling 
pollution grossly overestimate and distort reality. If you look at 
electricity prices of major utilities since the acid rain program was 
implemented, their rates have remained below the national average and 
some have actually decreased--even without adjusting for inflation.
  Secondly, and most importantly, the bottom line here should not be 
the cost of controlling mercury emissions, but the cost of NOT 
controlling mercury. While we may not be able to calculate how many 
Einstein's we have lost, if we lose one the price has been too high.
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