Senators Collins, Carper Reintroduce Bipartisan Legislation to Track Mercury Pollution
Sens. Tom Carper, D-Delaware, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, recently reintroduced the Comprehensive National Mercury Monitoring Act, a bipartisan bill that would establish a national mercury monitoring network to protect human health, safeguard fisheries and track the environmental effects of emissions reductions.
The senators previously introduced this bill in August 2018.
Mercury is a potent neurotoxin of significant ecological and public health concern, especially for children and pregnant women. An estimated 200,000 children born in the U.S. each year are exposed to levels of mercury in the womb that are high enough to impair neurological development. Scientists, however, must rely on limited information to understand the critical linkages between mercury emissions and environmental response and human health. To design, implement and assess solutions to the problem of mercury pollution, scientists need comprehensive long-term data. This bipartisan bill would address this discrepancy and help to acquire critical data.
