Illinois Congressmen Vote to Block Public Health Protections

(Washington, D.C.– February 18, 2011)

The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to use a budget bill to block clean air protections.

The vote was on an amendment to the Continuing Resolution (HR 1). The amendment, which passed Thursday night, would block all funding for enforcement of limits on mercury and other toxic pollution from cement plants. Mercury pollution causes brain damage in children.

Voting for higher levels of mercury in our air, and in the Great Lakes, were Illinois Representatives Dan Lipinski (D-IL-3), Peter Roskam (R-IL-6), Joe Walsh (R-IL-8), Robert Dold (R-IL-10), Adam Kinzinger (R-IL-11), Jerry Costello (D-IL-12), Judy Biggert (R- IL-13), Randy Hultgren (R-IL-14), Donald Manzullo (R-IL-16), Bobby Schilling (R-IL-17), Aaron Schock (R-IL-18), and John Shimkus (R-IL-19).

“These congressmen are voting for more toxic mercury in our air and water – and that puts our kids at risk,” said Steve Cochran of Environmental Defense Fund. “This will mean more mercury pollution from dirty plants around America will end up in fish in Lake Michigan. Experts, not politicians, should be making decisions about air pollution.”

Mercury Contamination and the Dangers to Illinois Residents

The mercury we put into our air falls back to earth, contaminates our waters, and gets into our food supply; it’s dangerous enough that pregnant women are warned against eating tuna and other fish because of high mercury levels that could cause brain damage in their unborn babies.

Mercury contamination is a particularly bad problem in Illinois.
• The Illinois Department of Public Health warns people to limit their consumption of largemouth bass, flathead catfish, walleye and other types of Illinois fish.
• In an EPA study, 59 percent of the Illinois fish sampled exceeded the safe mercury limit for children under age three.

Cement plants are the third largest source of manmade mercury emissions in the U.S.
• Illinoishas 4 cement plants, and is immediately downwind of 5 additional plants.
• One-seventieth of one teaspoon of mercury is enough to contaminate a 20-acre lake and make the fish in it unsuitable for consumption.
• Each year, cement plants emit an estimated 16,000 lbs of mercury into the environment.
• Each year, an estimated 400,000 American newborn babies are exposed to unsafe levels of mercury.
• Enforcing the limits on toxic pollution from cement kilns would lower the amount of mercury they spew into the air by 92 percent, and save up to 2,500 lives each year.

While 12 Representatives from the Illinois delegation voted against reducing mercury emissions, the other seven members of the Illinois delegation voted for cleaner air and safer, healthier kids: Representatives Bobby Rush (D –IL-1), Jesse Jackson (D-IL-2), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL-4), Michael Quigley (D-IL-5), Danny Davis (D-IL-7), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL-9), and Tim Johnson (R-IL-15).

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