Leahy Questions EPA’s Leavitt On Mercury Rule;
‘To be blunt, the Bush Administration has a credibility problem
 about its approach to the Clean Air Act and to mercury pollution’

WASHINGTON (Thursday, March 25) -- [Following is the opening statement of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) at Thursday’s annual Senate hearing on EPA’s budget, where the witness was EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt.  The hearing was held by the Appropriations Committee’s panel that handles the Senate’s work in assembling the EPA budget, the Subcommittee on VA-HUD and Independent Agencies.  Leahy is a senior member of the panel.  Long the Senate’s leader on mercury pollution issues, Leahy focused his remarks and his questions to Leavitt on the Bush Administration’s Clean Air Act rollbacks, and especially on the proposed rule on mercury pollution.  Leahy asked Leavitt to withdraw the rule.  Leahy and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) are heading a new bipartisan letter to Leavitt making the same request.  Leahy and Snowe to date have been joined by several dozen senators in signing the letter, which is expected to be transmitted to Administrator Leavitt next week.]

Note:  Charts available below.

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Opening Statement Of Senator Patrick Leahy
Annual Hearing On EPA’s Budget
Subcommittee On VA-HUD And Independent Agencies
Senate Committee On Appropriations
Thursday, March 25, 2004

Administrator Leavitt, I have been looking forward to this hearing, and thank you for coming today. 

First, I want to thank you for recognizing the importance of Lake Champlain by including it in EPA’s budget proposal.  Cleaning up Lake Champlain is one of Vermont’s top priorities and it has been one of my top priorities while I have served in the Senate and as a member of this subcommittee. 

I also applaud you for the tone you set in assuming your duties at EPA.  Tones are important, though we should not lose sight of the fact that the actual notes in the music are even more important.

Which brings me to the very strong concerns and objections I have to the Administration’s repeated attempts to roll back the Clean Air Act and to let big polluters off the hook when it comes to reducing toxic emissions like mercury.  If these rollbacks succeed, the Bush Administration will have undermined decades of work to restore Lake Champlain, and the same can be said for countless other rivers, lakes and streams in our nation. 

As you may be noticing lately, there is a strong, bipartisan and growing outcry about the Administration’s latest retreat from the Clean Air Act, in the form of your mercury proposal.  These concerns are building so swiftly that they may soon reach critical mass.  This chart gives some indication of the reasons why these objections are so strong on Capitol Hill, and also why these objections are bipartisan.

This (chart) is an EPA map that shows mercury levels across the country.  You can barely even see Vermont.  For decades, we in the Northeast have been the dumping ground for the coal-fired power plants in the Midwest. 

EPA’s new proposal to reduce mercury emissions from these plants was supposed to bring these power plants into the 21^st Century and to clean up their emissions.  It doesn’t do that.  It falls far short of what is possible and what is necessary.

Despite the Bush Administration’s best efforts to use every tactic in its public relations arsenal to convince Americans that more mercury in their water, their food and their environment over a longer period of time is the best we can do, it has not worked.  And the glimpses that have come to light about the Bush Administration’s close collusion with polluting industries in devising its policy on mercury have also raised serious concerns.  Administrator Leavitt, to be blunt:  The Bush Administration has a credibility problem about its approach to the Clean Air Act and to mercury pollution.

New warnings about mercury risks from tuna, increasing numbers of pregnant women with mercury levels above safe levels, more newborns being born with high mercury levels – all are adding up to widespread and growing public demand for prompt action.

Mercury is the last major toxic without a containment plan.  All of us recall the hubbub a few years ago when we finally took steps to remove the lead from our gasoline, and the dire predictions we heard from corporate polluters – predictions that never came to pass.  Removing lead from our fuel is one of the smartest environmental steps we have ever taken.  Years from now, we will look back and wonder why we waited so long to put a credible action plan on mercury into place, enduring, in the meantime, the emissions of so many more tons of mercury into our air and water.  The previous Administration finally was heading in the right direction to achieve this.  The Bush Administration has systematically undone that progress.  I would hope that you would not want this stain to remain on your legacy at EPA and for it to be said that America, on your watch, pulled back from effectively contending with the mercury problem.

So Administrator Leavitt, I have several questions for you about the Administration’s attempts to roll back the Clean Air Act.  From press reports, it seems that you might already be having second thoughts about this, so for now I just urge you to withdraw the Administration’s industry-ghostwritten, scientifically unjustifiable policy on mercury. 

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Click below to view charts Senator Leahy used during his questioning of Leavitt:

EPA chart showing mercury pollution over the Northeast.  [high resolution and larger]

Chart showing comparison of mercury rule language and language suggested by industry. [high resolution and larger]