Sponsors (9)
The resolution increases protections and targeted public-health actions for children and communities exposed to mercury from fossil-fuel plants, but may raise energy prices and administrative costs for state/local governments and taxpayers.
Children living near fossil-fuel power plants would be explicitly recognized as at-risk for mercury exposure, enabling targeted monitoring and protective actions for those children.
Parents, families, and state public-health agencies would be able to prioritize fish-consumption advisories and outreach in affected areas, reducing mercury ingestion risks for local residents.
Rural communities and state governments would gain greater awareness of emissions from fossil-fuel plants, which can support justification for stricter emissions controls or cleanup funding to reduce long-term environmental contamination.
Taxpayers and middle-class families could face higher energy costs if identifying fossil-fuel plants as primary mercury sources leads to new regulations or costly retrofits.
State and local agencies — and therefore taxpayers — may incur increased monitoring, advisory, and administrative duties and costs to implement the recognition and outreach measures.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
States findings that mercury is a potent neurotoxin, identifies fossil-fuel power plants as the largest U.S. source, and highlights health risks and widespread exposure.
States findings that mercury is a potent neurotoxin released when coal, oil, and gas are burned, that atmospheric mercury deposits into soil, water, and food chains, and that eating contaminated fish is the most common exposure route. Notes that fossil fuel–fired power plants are the largest U.S. source of mercury emissions, that tens of millions of people (including millions of children) live near such plants, and that mercury exposure causes serious neurological, developmental, renal, and cardiovascular harm with no known safe level.
Introduced December 17, 2025 by Sheldon Whitehouse · Last progress December 17, 2025