Date: 2004-03-18
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. the gentleman is right. and I want to thank the gentleman from Maine for his leadership and the gentleman from Washington State . And I want to tell the gentlemen a little good news/bad news story. and we had some good news this morning. which is that a group of bipartisan Mefinbers of Congress from the Chesapeake watershed States got together and established the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Task Force. The Chesapeake Bay is one of the greatest national treasures in the United States. indeed in the world. and so we got together to pledge ourselves to work together to clean up the Chesapeake Bay and take the steps that are necessary. But this Bush administration proposal on mercury that the gentleman has drawn our attention to takes us in exactly the wrong direction. It takes us backwards. We all know that mercury consumption advisories have been issued throughout the United States. and. in fact. mercury contamination of fish is. of course. is the number one cause for human contamination. human poisoning. In my State of Maryland. we have had statewide advisories. In Pennsylvania and other States in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. we had a Statewide advisory. And we know that recent studies have shown that Maryland is one of the States with the highest deposition of mercury in the country due to airborne mercury emitted from power plants. And this. as the gentleman has said. is a problem that is not unique to Maryland .ad to the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. It is. a problem up in Maine. It is a problem in Washington State.. It is a problem around our country. And currently advisories for mercury are increasing faster than any other pollutant. They nbw represent 60 percent of all water bodies with fish advisories nationwide. So this is a national problem. It is a problem obviously in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. which we have a particular interest in locally. but it is a problem throughout the country. And as my colleague from Maine was pointing out. we have an administration now that when it comes to issues of science. when it comes to issues of the environment. really the White House has become an evidencefree zon1e. I mean. we can get scientists. we can get Nobel laureates. we can get a consensus of opinion throughout the scientific community coming down on one side of an issue. and yet time after time the administration throws out the facts. buries its head in the sand. and decides to go the other way. We understand that mercury poisoning is something that affects people throughout this country. Of course. pregnant women and children are particularly vulnerable to mercury poisoning. And so this idea that the EPA now has. the Bush administration EPA. of establishing a capintrade program for mercury. which may be a very acceptable proposal for less poisonous contaminants. but when they have a capintrade program for something as poisonous as mercury. what they are saying to those people who happen to live right next door to the power plant that is emitting mercury is it is okay if they get poison. as long as their power plant buys credits from somewhere else. buys the right to pollute. they can put as much mercury into the air around their plant as -they want. That is a health disaster for people in the area. Again. it is one thing to treat less poisonous pollutants that way. but to take a hazardous pollutant like mercury and say go ahead and pollute. go ahead and contaminate the water in a particular area. it is going to mean serious health problems for women and children in that area and throughout the country.