Obama Leads Bipartisan Legislation For Mercury Export Ban, S. 906

Last November Hg-ATME had a post about House Bill 1534, a bill proposed by Rep. Tom Allen D-Maine that would ban all exports of toxic mercury from the United States. The bill was nearly unanimously received and passed on a voice vote (no roll call required). At that same time Sens. Barak Obama, D-IL and and Lisa Murkowski R-AK were floating a similar bill through the Senate. At the time, the Whitehouse said it would not support the bipartisan legislation. Now almost a year later we have a marked-up version (S. 906, The Mercury Market Minimization Act) of the two bills that everyone has agreed on.

An excerpt from The Earth Times follows;

"Trading mercury is not like trading potato chips," said Michael Bender, director of the Mercury Policy Project. "While we spend millions of dollars in the U.S. collecting mercury, ironically it is then sold overseas and used in highly dispersive and dangerous ways, such as in small scale gold mining. Released from these practices, it circulates in the global environment and ends up in the fish that Americans eat."

The free trade of mercury and mercury compounds on the world market, at relatively low prices and in ready supply, encourages the continued use of mercury outside of the U.S.

"We applaud Senator Barak Obama's leadership on this bipartisan legislation," said Bender. "We've got to stop this circle of poison, where for example over 1000 tons of mercury are used annually by more than 10 million small scale gold miners in 50 developing countries, exposing themselves, their families and the local and global environment to this deadly neurotoxin."
[...]
While similar versions of the bill were introduced in the House (H.R. 1534) by Tom Allen (D-ME), and Senate (S.906) by Senators Obama (D-IL) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), the groups are urging passage of the substitute House-passed version, since it was the subject of subsequent negotiation and compromise, and more accurately reflects the current state of development on this issue.

Lets hope that the President has enough sense at this time to support it.