[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 84 (Monday, June 13, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Page S3732]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Ms. COLLINS (for herself and Mr. Carper):
  S. 1183. A bill to establish a national mercury monitoring program, 
and for other purposes; to the Committee on Environment and Public 
Works.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, today along with Senator Carper, I am 
introducing the Comprehensive National Mercury Monitoring Act. This 
bill would ensure that the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, has 
accurate information about the extent of mercury pollution.
  A comprehensive national mercury monitoring network is needed to 
protect human health, safeguard fisheries, and track the impact of 
emissions reductions. By accurately quantifying regional and national 
changes in atmospheric deposition, ecosystem contamination, and 
bioaccumulation of mercury in fish and wildlife in response to changes 
in mercury emissions, this monitoring network would help policy makers, 
scientists, and the public to better understand the sources, 
consequences, and trends in United States mercury pollution.
  Mercury is a potent neurotoxin of significant ecological and public 
health concern, especially for children and pregnant women. It is 
estimated that approximately 410,000 children born in the U.S. were 
exposed to levels of mercury in the womb that are high enough to impair 
neurological development. Mercury exposure has gone down as U.S. 
mercury emissions have declined; however, levels remain unacceptably 
high.
  Each new scientific study seems to find higher levels of mercury in 
more ecosystems and in more species than we had previously thought. For 
example, as of 2008, every state in the country has issued mercury 
advisories for human fish consumption. These advisories cover 57 
percent of the Nation's total lake acreage, and 68 percent of our total 
river miles. This is 19 percent more lake acreage and 42 percent more 
river area than in 2006.
  At present, scientists must rely on limited information to understand 
the critical linkages between mercury emissions and environmental 
response and human health. Successful design, implementation, and 
assessment of solutions to the mercury pollution problem require 
comprehensive long-term information--information that is currently not 
available. We must have more comprehensive information and we must have 
it soon; otherwise, we risk making misguided policy decisions.
  Specifically, the Comprehensive National Mercury Monitoring Act would 
direct EPA, in conjunction with the Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. 
Geological Survey, National Park Service, the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration, and other appropriate Federal agencies, to 
establish a national mercury monitoring program to measure and monitor 
mercury levels in the air and watersheds, water and soil chemistry, and 
in aquatic and terrestrial organisms at multiple sites across the 
Nation.
  The act would establish a scientific advisory committee to advise on 
the establishment, site selection, measurement, recording protocols, 
and operations of the monitoring program; establish a centralized 
database for existing and newly collected environmental mercury data 
that can be freely accessed on the Internet; and require a report to 
Congress every 2 years on the program, including trend data, and an 
assessment of the reduction in mercury deposition rates that are 
required to be achieved in order to prevent adverse human and 
ecological effects every 4 years.
  We must establish a comprehensive, robust national mercury monitoring 
network to provide EPA the data it needs to make decisions that protect 
the people and environment of Maine and the entire Nation.
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