Political Quotes

“I rise in strong support of this amendment. However, the underlying bill actually nullifies the EPA's rules to require cement kilns to reduce their emissions of toxic mercury and other toxic pollutants and forces EPA to go back to square one. In doing so, this bill nullifies the rule's promised reductions in mercury pollution from cement kilns, delays any potential future reductions, and threatens EPA's ability to issue replacement standards that will achieve the same benefit for public health. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin. Babies born to women exposed to mercury during pregnancy can suffer from a range of developmental and neurological abnormalities, including delayed onset of walking, delayed onset of talking, cerebral palsy, and learning disabilities. This is certainly an important issue for Democrats and Republicans to support. In 1990, Congress amended the Clean Air Act on a bipartisan basis to reduce emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from a range of industrial sources, including cement kilns. Cement kilns are one of the largest sources of airborne mercury pollution in the United States. For far too long, they have been allowed to pollute without installing modern technology to reduce their emissions of mercury and other toxic chemicals. The Clean Air Act directed EPA to issue standards to cut emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from cement kilns by 2000. That was a decade ago. EPA didn't finalize these rules until August of last year.…”