What has Bush done to increase mercury in our environment?

[usregimechange]

Not up on that but I should be.

[shoelace414]

1. Mercury is a by-product of burning coal.

relaxing clear air regulations increases mercury in the environment

[Botany]

2. Dropped requirements to reduce mercury admissions from

coal fired power plants. As a matter of fact he allowed more mercury
to be put into the atmosphere.

BTW the coal and electric companies help run his administration.

[usregimechange]

3. From Greenwatch

President Bush's plan to reduce toxic mercury emissions from power plants would utterly fail to protect public health for the next 20 years. Unveiled in January, the President's proposal would put off even modest reductions until 2025, even though the Clean Air Act calls for maximum possible reductions by 2008.
http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000165.php

[back2basics909]

4. Here you go...

Here you go... EPA's own figures. You will notice a big shift from Mercury to "Mercury compounds", just as dangerous.

http://www.epa.gov/triexplorer/facility.htm

The amount of Mercury emissions by year (In pounds).

1988 296,299 - 20,328 in Mercury compounds

1989 157,679 - 60,431 in Mercury compounds

1990 204,341 - 37,293 in Mercury compounds

1991 137,098 - 40,018 in Mercury compounds

1992 61,471 - 195,527 in Mercury compounds

1993 32,065 - 59,640 in Mercury Compounds

1994 26,900 - 29,040 in Mercury Compounds

1995 28,698 - 210,395 in Mercury Compounds

1996 28,303 - 32,435 in Mercury compounds

1997 39,916 - 27,879 in Mercury compounds

1998 290,454 - 9,061,942 in Mercury compounds

1999 142,952 - 3,110,087 in Mercury Compounds

2000 99,530 - 3,643,198 in Mercury compounds

2001 114,561 - 4,701,124 in Mercury Compounds

2002 92,470 - 5,161,814 in Mercury compounds

2003 68,531 - 7,332,965 in Mercury compounds

Mercury thrown away (thermometers etc) (in Tons)

[SCDem]

5. All of what they said above

and more ... if you are really interested I did research for 2 years on Mercury in the environment and the damage it does to children and real issues of how to deal with it. Some areas in the US are affected more by mercury than others just because of geography. The Southeast is really bad but that is because the blackwater rivers do not allow the mercury to dissolve.

Anyway many Republicans say other countries do not have caps and that mercury affects us so why should we cap it ourselves? Because it is a difficult task (reducing mercury worldwide) to under take we shouldn't try to tackle it at all :shrug: I don't buy that and believe we had been making progressive steps.

Now mercury effects children's IQ level - and then some people say well a few points here or there won't really matter. But then if you think of it the kids most affected are the kids of parents who fish for subsentence. So perhaps they are already down a few IQ and then you take it down even further. Furthermore there is a community impact as with everything prevention (in this case capping mercury emissions) is so much cheaper than the long term social services, education, medical costs of taking care of all those children affected.

But then this is the question that I've been stuck on myself: The people most affected are subsistence fisherman - They are fishing so that they have food - if we tell them the fish are toxic don't fish in the rivers how do we aid them in feeding their family? I haven't answered this question to my satisfaction yet.

Then there is the whole issue of the fish that we buy at the grocery store which is almost as equally toxic as the fish in some of the Carolina rivers. That's because the FDA is more of a business than a regulatory agency.

Anyway like I said if you want to know more just PM me.

[trof]

6. Think I just read that 37 states have at least partial bans on eating fish

caught in local waters, due to high mercury content.

[LiberalEsto]

7. Read the part about mercury in RFK Jr's recent speech

Link:

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0916-27.htm

[Coexist]

8. "EPA moves to weaken mercury emission rules"

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/science/1203/03mercury.html
<snip>
WASHINGTON -- Two weeks before a court-ordered deadline for writing rules controlling mercury pollution from power plants, the Bush administration is considering abandoning the rules in favor of a new plan that would allow electric companies to swap pollution credits.

The agency had been working for three years to meet a Dec. 15 deadline for setting standards that would require industry to install the best available technology for scrubbing the toxic metal from power plant smoke. But the White House Office of Management and Budget is circulating documents saying the EPA erred when, in the closing days of the Clinton administration, it declared that mercury is the kind of toxic substance for which the Clean Air Act requires strict pollution controls.

The documents, made public by environmental organizations, state that instead of requiring specific controls, the agency should set overall mercury limits and allow individual power companies to meet the limits however they wish. Companies that exceed the goals would be issued credits, which they could sell to those which do not.

"This would be a slam-dunk victory for the dirty electric power industry," said Frank O'Donnell, executive director of the Clean Air Trust. "It shows that Leavitt is taking orders from the White House, which is influenced by the power companies that want to gut the mercury requirements."

[Coexist]

9. New Report Finds 20 States Increased Warnings for Mercury in Fish in 2003

http://www.cleartheair.org/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=25801
<snip>
"Power plants are the nation's single largest industrial source of mercury pollution, contributing 41 percent of U.S. mercury emissions. The report comes as the Bush administration prepares to finalize a highly controversial proposal that would let power plants emit six to seven times more mercury over the next decade than the Clean Air Act allows and would delay meaningful reductions until 2018 at the earliest. Moreover, the plan allows facilities to buy mercury pollution credits from facilities located far away instead of reducing their own emissions, thus increasing the risk of creating and exacerbating toxic hotspots."

[Coexist]

10. "Witnesses Tell Senators Mercury Pollution Will Increase Under Bush Plan"

http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200407/070904.html
<snip>
WASHINGTON (Friday, July 9) – Vermont’s U.S. Senators Patrick Leahy and Jim Jeffords Friday led a hearing to examine the Bush Administration’s proposal on mercury emissions from power plants. The nation's 1,100 coal-burning power plants emit about 48 tons of mercury each year, the largest unregulated U.S. source. Witnesses, including former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials, testified that the Administration proposal allows for more mercury pollution than current law and is much less protective of public health.

Jeffords, the ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee said, “Sadly, the Bush Administration’s proposal on mercury pollution from power plants appears to do little to protect public health, especially in the short term. The proposed Administration rule calls for a permanent delay in serious reductions and would achieve far less in cleanup than is possible with today’s technologies and is required by the Clean Air Act. Also, it lets more than 200 power plants buy their way out of controlling these toxic emissions for 20 years or more.”