Patrick Leahy: “along with Senator Collins and 28 of our colleagues, today I am introducing this resolution to halt the Bush…”

“along with Senator Collins and 28 of our colleagues, today I am introducing this resolution to halt the Bush administration's flawed and dangerous new rule on toxic mercury emissions. I am pleased that another leading cosponsor of this resolution is the ranking member of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, Senator Jeffords. The Bush administration's new rule will continue to allow mercury, a substance so toxic that it causes birth defects and IQ loss, to continue to poison children and pregnant women. This disastrous rule should not be allowed to stand as the law of the land. The bipartisan work that produced the Clean Air Act and the 1990 amendments established a process for us to begin cleaning up the toxic mercury spewing out of dirty power plants across the country. The 1990 amendments require the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, to control each power plant's emissions of mercury and other toxics by 2008 at the latest. The act requires each plant to use the ``maximum achievable control technology'' on every generating unit. That is the law of the land. Anything less means more pollution. But instead of working to enforce and implement the Clean Air Act, as two previous administrations had, the Bush administration has turned the Clean Air Act on its head. With this rule the administration revokes a 2000 EPA finding that it is ``necessary and appropriate'' to require that each power plant apply technology to reduce mercury emissions.…”