Henry Waxman: “First, this amendment simply adds a congressional finding that Federal agencies should support ongoing efforts to reduce…”

“First, this amendment simply adds a congressional finding that Federal agencies should support ongoing efforts to reduce Americans' exposure to mercury. This seems to me a no-brainer. For the past 30 years, under both the Democrats and the Republicans, the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and other agencies at the federal, State, and local levels have worked together to set science- based, 10-year national objectives for improving the health of all Americans. This is called the Healthy People initiative. The Healthy People initiative has set critical public health objectives for 2020. These goals are the product of an extensive stakeholder process that involved public health experts, a wide range of federal, State, and local government officials, a consortium of more than 2,000 organizations, and the public. The Healthy People 2020 initiative set a goal for reducing mercury exposure. This goal is to reduce the level of mercury in the blood of children and women of childbearing age by 30 percent by 2020. Mercury exposure in the womb or at a young age can adversely affect the developing brain and nervous system, damaging a child's long-term cognitive thinking, memory, attention, language, and fine motor skills. This amendment states that Congress agrees that we ought to set this goal and we ought to try to achieve this goal as a way to reduce the mercury levels in children.…”