Feingold Pushes EPA To Issue Stronger Mercury Protection Rules
Current Rules Regarding Mercury Levels Fall Far Short of Adequately Protecting Children, Families, and the Environment
U.S. Senator Russ Feingold is calling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take immediate action to strengthen a proposed EPA rule regarding mercury emissions from power plants. Feingold joined a group of his Senate colleagues in writing to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, calling for a stronger rule to adequately protect children and the environment, as well as expressing concern over the EPA's rule-making process. The group of Senators had written a similar letter in 2004. The issues raised in the 2004 letter have since been bolstered by a recent report from the EPA Inspector General and a draft report from the Government Accountability Office, both of which severely criticize EPA's rulemaking process saying it violated EPA policy, OMB guidance, Presidential Executive Orders and, in some instances, important provisions of the Clean Air Act.
"Study after study has shown the dangers that mercury emissions present to families and the environment, yet the EPA continues to drag its feet in instituting rules to curb mercury pollution," Feingold said. "It is time for the EPA to be open with its rulemaking process to make sure our government is acting in the best interests of our children and our environment."
Last year, Feingold led a group of Senators in sending a letter to the President asking him to provide assurances that political considerations are kept separate from science and public health. The Senators wrote the President after reports that White House staff, while working with the EPA on the recently released draft mercury regulations, edited documents in order to play down the toxic effects of mercury. On April 7th, 2004, The New York Times reported that "[White House] staff members deleted or modified information on mercury that employees of the environmental agency [EPA] say was drawn largely from a 2000 report by the National Academy of Sciences that Congress had commissioned to settle the scientific debate about the risks of mercury."
http://feingold.senate.gov/~feingold/releases/05/03/2005308822.html