On the recordOctober 5, 2011
The gentlelady from Illinois is certainly a valuable member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and is an effective advocate for her positions, but her amendment would require a finding that mercury emitted from the cement kiln is a neurotoxin. I would first point out that EPA, itself, in its reports, has indicated that the regulation of domestic mercury, because of the Clean Air Act, has already decreased by 58 percent. It has also estimated that the Cement MACT that it issued, which is at issue in this legislation, would reduce global emissions of mercury by less than one- fourth of 1 percent. It also said that the Department of Energy estimated that the global emissions of mercury amount to about 11 million pounds. So the amount of mercury that we're talking about in this cement regulation is so minute that the EPA, itself, did not even assign a dollar value to the benefit because it was so, in its opinion, inconsequential. Obviously, Congress is not a scientific body. We know that mercury is dangerous, but when mercury comes out of a cement kiln, it comes out as elemental mercury. It then must fall into water, where organisms convert it to methylmercury. A fish has to take in the methylmercury, and that fish has to be cooked. Then someone has to eat it for it to be damaging to that person. So these are very scientific assumptions. As I said, Congress is not a scientific body.…
