Today's Action Alert

Today's Action Comes from the NRDC. Visit their webpage at www.nrdc.org and click on:

"Stop Global Mercury Pollution The U.S. should lead the way," to send an email to the State Department asking them to adopt meaningful goals for reducing mercury pollution. Or, copy and send the sample letter below.

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February 24, 2005

Claudia A. McMurray
Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Environment
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

The Bush administration has frequently pointed to the fact that much of our mercury pollution in the United States comes from abroad. The upcoming United Nations Environment Program meeting in Nairobi provides the first chance to take meaningful action to address this pollution in a coordinated fashion with the rest of the world. But the current U.S. position falls clearly short of the bare minimum required to make any substantial progress on reducing this harmful pollutant.

The U.S. plan should be greatly strengthened for this meeting. We should adopt goals for reducing mercury use by 50 percent by 2010 and 75 percent by 2015. We should promote a policy to phase out mercury uses across the globe and to put excess mercury into long-term storage rather than selling it into global commerce. Finally, our government should provide technical and financial assistance to countries in the developing world to phase out their current mercury uses, starting with the largest, most dispersive uses for which there are alternatives, particularly in chemical manufacturing and for switches and measuring devices.

The global problem of mercury pollution needs a global solution. The United States should lead the way, and the upcoming UNEP meeting would be a good place to start.

Sincerely,

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