Inside EPA 

Rep. Thomas Allen (D-ME) is crafting the bill that would also mandate, in the interim, that the Department of Defense (DOD) receive and store any new loads of mercury that would otherwise be resold into the commercial market, until EPA submits its final plan.

The effort comes amid growing environmental and public concern over mercury, while DOD is drafting plans to dispose of its mercury stockpiles. A shipment of used mercury from Maine was also recently turned back by the Indian government for alleged violations of the Basel Convention on hazardous waste shipments.

Congressional sources say that legislation for the federal management of mercury is necessary to counter a recent tide of mercury being reintroduced into the commercial market by closing industrial sectors with excess mercury inventory. "This only perpetuates the use of a highly toxic substance," one activist says.

However, DOD and EPA have long opposed any liability or responsibility for managing waste mercury. DOD maintains that its mercury stockpiles are simply a result of past national defense policy. Both agencies are likely to oppose Allen's legislation.

In a Feb. 5 Federal Register notice, DOD officials signaled their plans to find alternative uses or storage for the mercury that it currently has. In this DOD notice of intent, the department states that it will prepare an environmental impact statement that will evaluate different options for getting rid of its store of mercury. "The mercury in the stockpile has been declared excess to national defense needs and DNSC [Defense National Stockpile Center] must decide on long term management of the excess mercury," the statement says. A copy of the notice is available on our web site, InsideEPA.com.

The DOD announcement says, "Over the past several years . . . Congress has declared most of the DNSC materials to be in excess of national defense needs and has authorized their deposition, generally by sale."

Activists say this statement of intent suggests that DOD is simply going to recycle mercury back into commerce, which is the basis of Allen's legislative effort to force DOD to hold on to the mercury Environmentalists say there is now a greater need for Allen's bill since both DOD and EPA have in the past used the lack of Congressional directives pertaining to mercury management as a reason to refuse to accept and store excess loads of mercury. Activists reason that if legislation passes through Congress, the agencies will lose that excuse.

In one highly controversial move, for example, DOD in November refused to accept a 130-ton stockpile of mercury that was leftover stock from a chlor-alkali plant that closed in Maine, despite requests from several New England senators that DOD take the excess metal. EPA, similarly backed away from involvement and refused to make a case before DOD, but both agencies cited the lack of congressional authority as a reason for not taking the shipment of mercury.

That particular shipment of mercury has heightened the call for legislation, several sources say, after garnering a vast amount of media attention when it was sold to a company in India, only to be turned away from the Indian government. International environmental groups rallied to the cause of toxics in the commercial market when the Indian government refused to allow the mercury shipment -- which a U.S. metals broker bought from the closing plant and then sold to a company in India -- to enter Indian borders. The shipment is now waiting in an Egyptian port for another buyer.

"Now with this international issue on the stage, it is just the right time to bring such legislation to the floor, when everybody's looking at the issue," one source says.

Allen's bill -- which congressional sources say will be introduced in late February or early March -- would also put a ban on mercury thermometers and set up a grant system, whereby the federal government would fund a mercury recycling and exchange program.