WASHINGTON - August 10 - Statement of Carl Pope, Sierra Club's Executive Director

"The Bush administration is still pushing the same misguided mercury plan it has been trying to sell to Americans, unsuccessfully, for nearly a year now. The plan puts off protecting communities from mercury pollution for more than a decade. Right now, the technology exists that would put America on the road to reducing mercury pollution from power plants by 90% everywhere. Instead, the Bush administration continues pushing for a pollution trading scheme that favors corporate polluters and could lead to local 'hot spots,' communities where mercury contamination is greater.

"Earlier this year, more than half a million Americans -- a record number -- sent public comments to the Environmental Protection Agency to demand that the Bush administration clean up toxic mercury pollution. While we look forward to any additional information about the impacts of the administration's plan, it's too little, too late. Americans won't be fooled again -- if the Bush administration simply enforced the existing Clean Air Act, we'd be on the road to getting mercury out of America's lakes and rivers and off our dinner tables."

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