Congressman: White House forms panel on seafood mercury
The Associated Press
5/20/02 5:10 PM

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) -- A task force designed to tackle mercury pollution in the Gulf of Mexico and in other waters off American
shores is being formed by the White House, U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions announced Monday.

Sessions, a Mobile Republican, said he wrote to President Bush on Friday calling for federal action to confront mercury contamination in the Gulf, including high levels of mercury in seafood.

"We felt this needed a presidential response," Sessions said. "It's a big step forward as it has the imprimatur of the White House."

Sessions announced the formation of the interagency work group at a Mobile forum on mercury.

The task force will operate under the auspices of the National Science and Technology Council, which handles federal science-related issues.

The senator said he has asked the White House to include representatives from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Commerce and other federal agencies.

Sessions credited a series of Mobile Register stories about mercury contamination in the Gulf for pushing the issue onto the national agenda. The stories found that several species of Gulf fish, including ling, amberjack and redfish, may be so contaminated with toxic methylmercury that Food and Drug Administration standards would prohibit selling them to the public.

The Register also reported that federal and state authorities have not tested most Gulf fish enough to know whether they are safe to eat. And hair tests of coastal residents sponsored by the paper last year found many had mercury levels from five to 10 times the EPA's safe level for mercury in the human body.

Sessions said mercury has proven difficult for federal regulators to address because many agencies with conflicting agendas are involved. Sessions said he hoped the president's new group will provide someone to oversee the regulators.

One of the interagency confrontations regarding mercury pits the EPA against the FDA over the amount of mercury-contaminated seafood a human can eat before suffering ill effects.

FDA regulators believe a person can safely consume four times as much mercury as EPA scientists believe is safe. Both agencies claim they base their standards in science, though the National Academy of Sciences has endorsed only the more protective EPA standard.

The Commerce Department, which controls the nation's fisheries, and the Interior Department, which regulates the offshore oil and gas fields through the Minerals Management Service, may also find themselves on opposite sides over mercury pollution around oil and gas rigs in the Gulf.

The minerals management service has argued that the rig pollution is not a threat to fish or fishermen in the Gulf, while the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently announced new mercury testing of Gulf fish, citing federal data that indicates the rigs may indeed be contaminating Gulf sea life.