Fwd: I'd Like A Tuna On White — Hold The Mercury!

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Wed, 24 Mar 2004 18:52:45 -0500

I'd Like A Tuna On White — Hold The Mercury!

 

" Arianna Huffington "

 

As a mother, I find the Bush administration's blatant disregard for the health

of America's children utterly appalling. We simply cannot allow them to

reclassify mercury as a less toxic substance. If you'd like to share your

comments, learn more about this issue or find out how to take action, please

visit my new blog: http://www.ariannaonline.com/blog/index.php

 

 

I'D LIKE A TUNA ON WHITE — HOLD THE MERCURY!

 

By Arianna Huffington

 

To the list of Campaign 2004's make-or-break issues — Iraq, homeland security,

lost jobs, tax cuts — we can now add tuna fish sandwiches.

 

I'm not kidding.

 

I was recently at a dinner filled with smart, passionate, politically active

guests. When the talk inevitably turned to the presidential campaign I was

surprised to find that the issue that really set the table humming was the Bush

administration's outrageous undermining of efforts to curtail mercury pollution

— and stop the increasing contamination of America's air, water and

fish-of-choice.

 

The administration's lies — and ongoing rationalizations — about WMD are utterly

contemptible, but messing with people's tuna salad hits them right in the gut.

 

And this is not some theoretical menace whose effects won't be felt for decades.

After a recent medical checkup, I was shocked to discover that I have elevated

levels of mercury in my bloodstream — as do my sister and four of my closest

girlfriends.

 

The primary source of mercury emissions is coal-fired power plants, which pump

out 48 tons of the highly toxic pollutant a year. A second important source is

the chemical industry. This mercury pollution drifts into our lakes, rivers and

oceans, and ends up in the fish we eat. Which means it ends up in us. As a

result, over 600,000 babies a year may be born with unsafe levels of mercury in

their blood, putting them at risk for mental retardation, cerebral palsy,

deafness and blindness. How's that for a security issue?

 

In adults, exposure to mercury can cause infertility, high blood pressure,

tremors and memory loss, which perhaps explains Jessica Simpson’s befuddling

inability to remember if Chicken of the Sea had fins or feathers.

 

Later this year, the Environmental Protection Agency will issue new mercury

emission standards, setting a limit for the first time on the amount of mercury

the nation’s 1,100 coal-burning power plants are allowed to release into the

atmosphere. Unfortunately, the Bush administration is clearly intent on

subverting the process by which those standards are set.

 

Back in 2001, the EPA created a taskforce made up of state air quality

officials, environmentalists and representatives of the utility industry to

determine the best way to reduce mercury emissions. But after working diligently

on the issue for close to two years, the group was unceremoniously disbanded

before completing its work — and its recommendations scuttled in favor of a plan

that was, surprise, surprise, more to the liking of the White House's buddies,

benefactors and cronies in the power plant industry.

 

Without getting shrouded in a toxic cloud of technical mumbo-jumbo, the bottom

line is that current technology offers a way to reduce mercury emissions by 90

percent over the next four years — but the Bush administration has opted for a

plan that would, at best, lower the noxious output by just 50 percent over the

next 14 years, while setting no meaningful limits on the tons of mercury

released by the chemical industry. All of which will save the power, coal and

chemical industries billions.

 

Choke on that for a minute: Big Power gets a tasty multibillion-dollar treat,

while everyone else is served up a Toxic Tuna Surprise.

 

Of course, cooking up distorted scientific findings and dishing out political

favors at the expense of the public good has become something of a blue plate

special at the Bush White House.

 

So has allowing lobbyists extraordinary input on legislation and regulations

affecting the industries they represent. In the case of the administration's

proposed mercury rules, no less than a dozen paragraphs were directly lifted,

often word for word, from memos prepared by lobbying and advocacy groups

representing power and energy companies with a major financial stake in the

outcome of the regulatory process.

 

But that's not the half of it. It turns out that two of the key EPA regulators

overseeing the development of the mercury guidelines, Jeff Holmstead and William

Wehrum, used to represent utility industry clients before Bush tapped them for

high-ranking posts in the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation. They were both

attorneys at Latham and Watkins — a high-powered D.C. law firm that's been

lobbying the administration to adopt the less stringent mercury standards, and

which authored one of the memos cribbed in the EPA proposal.

 

Here's a thought: Maybe the White House can save taxpayers some money and have

Holmstead and Wehrum put back on the Latham and Watkins payroll, seeing how they

continue to be such devoted company men. Call it the privatization of the EPA.

 

This kind of fox-guarding-the-henhouse cronyism is fortunately being challenged

by almost 200,000 citizens, who've signed a MoveOn.org petition opposing this

blatant payback to Bush's utility industry contributors. And later this week,

MoveOn will launch a hard-hitting television and print ad campaign designed to

stoke public outrage over the Bush mercury proposal, which the EPA's own

Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee declared, " does not sufficiently

protect our nation's children " .

 

Here's a suggestion: Perhaps the president should take a page from Don Rumsfeld

and keep a shard of tin from a can of contaminated tuna on his Oval Office desk

as a daily reminder of the havoc his irresponsible environmental policies are

wreaking on the health of America's kids. Bush wants this election to be a

referendum on his performance as guardian of our safety. I couldn’t agree more.

 

© 2004 ARIANNA HUFFINGTON.

DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

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