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Take Easy Web Action on Bush's Proposal On Mercury Emissions From Coal-Fired Power Plants
EASY WEB ACTION ON PROPOSAL ON MERCURY EMISSIONS FROM COAL-FIRED POWER PLANTS --Comment period ends, tomorrow April 30!-- Bush must think mercury poisoning is a good thing! The comment period on the Bush EPA's proposal ends tomorrow! Please take action by clicking on the link below, and please ask your friends to do the same.
Thank you!
Background from USPIRG
Mercury is a dangerous toxic metal that can cause severe neurological and developmental problems in unborn fetuses and very young children whose brains are still developing. People are exposed to mercury mainly by eating fish. The EPA and forty-three states have now issued advisories warning people, especially women and children, to avoid or limit eating local fish because of mercury. But even with these warnings, the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention and the EPA estimate that 1 out of 6 U.S. women of childbearing age have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood due to fish consumption.
The best way to protect women and children from mercury is to eliminate it from its largest source: power plants. Smokestacks spew mercury pollution into the air, where it rains and snows down into our waterways, accumulating in fish and making them unsafe to eat. Amazingly, power plants have yet to be regulated for mercury pollution under federal clean air standards. Two years ago, the EPA's own scientists said current technologies could achieve a 90 percent reduction of mercury from power plants, but the electric and coal industries are pressing hard to avoid limiting their mercury emissions.
After years of work by us and other public health advocates, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now under a deadline to reduce the dangers of mercury from power plants.
Last December, the EPA's initial weak proposal to reduce the danger posed by mercury from power plants was released. Amazingly, they are indicating they'll reclassify mercury so that it's not considered a "toxic pollutant," despite long-standing, clear evidence of mercury's effects as a developmental toxin. This will allow them to avoid requiring power plants to use the best available technology to reduce emissions, as stipulated by the Clean Air Act.
But the Bush administration is feeling the immense public outcry about its inadequate proposal for addressing power plant emissions of mercury. In March, EPA Administrator Leavitt made an announcement that the administration would begin studying options for strengthening the rule and extended the mercury proposal comment period to April 30. Administrator Leavitt's statement cited recent EPA studies showing that loopholes in the EPA's proposal would prevent the rule from meeting its weak goals, which would allow 6-7 times more pollution than properly enforcing the Clean Air Act.
Take action today this weak mercury proposal. Please take a moment to send in your comments, and then ask your family and friends to help by forwarding this e-mail to them.
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