Finally, Real Toxics Safety Regulation?

• Author: Margaret Kriz Hobson
• Position: Environment and energy writer for the National Journal
• Pages: 8-8

Page 8 ❧ THE ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM Copyright © 2010, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.

Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, May/June 2010

Finally, Real Toxics

Safety Regulation?

At a time when the climate change

debate has nearly eclipsed congres-

sional interest in other environmental

issues, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-

New Jersey) is putting the f‌inishing

touches on a bill aimed at protecting

the public from potentially dangerous

chemicals found in everyday products.

Lautenberg is proposing to overhaul

the Toxic Substances Control Act, the

34-year-old law that contains so many

loopholes, according to the Govern-

ment Accountability Of‌f‌ice, that fed-

eral regulators have been unable to use

it to control hazardous chemicals.

e toxics law allows chemical mak-

ers to market new substances without

f‌irst proving that they are safe. As a

result, roughly half of the applications

for new chemicals that the Environ-

mental Protection Agency receives un-

der TSCA contain no scientif‌ic safety

studies, according to a February report

by EPA’s inspector general. Once a

chemical is in commercial use, regu-

lators can’t require companies to test

the substance unless they can prove

it presents a signif‌icant risk to public

health. Roughly 80,000 chemicals are

in commercial use, but only 200 have

been required to be tested.

e law’s impotence has been ap-

parent since 1989, when EPA tried

to ban some uses of asbestos based on

dozens of studies linking the chemi-

cal to deadly respiratory illnesses. Two

years later, however, a federal court

ruled that ambiguities in TSCA pro-

hibited the ban. At the time, Congress

shrugged of‌f calls to strengthen the

law, leaving EPA regulators with little

power.

But in recent years, Americans have

become increasingly alarmed about

the dangerous chemicals found in

consumer products. “e American

people are more and more concerned

about chemicals ending up in their

bodies,” Lautenberg, the chairman

of the Senate Subcommittee on Su-

perfund, Toxics, and Environmental

Health, argued at a recent hearing.

“And parents in particular are dis-

mayed that the government is power-

less to require testing of chemicals that

are going into our children’s bodies.”

ose fears were heightened late

last year when the Centers for Dis-

ease Control and Prevention reported

that hundreds of potentially danger-

ous chemicals used in f‌ire retardants,

plastic hardeners, and

non-stick coatings

were found in hu-

man blood and urine

samples.

All of the parties

involved in the chemi-

cal safety debate agree

that the time has come to revamp

TSCA and the Obama administra-

tion ranks modernizing the chemical

safety law as one of its top priorities.

Last fall, EPA Administrator Lisa

Jackson announced a set of principles

for modernizing the statute. Jackson

asked Congress to require manufac-

turers to prove that their chemicals are

safe before being allowed to market

them. She also asked for the authority

to regulate chemicals that do not meet

scientif‌ically set safety standards.

Public health groups and environ-

mentalists cite studies on the failings

of the toxics law as evidence that the

Congress should give the agency even

more powers to control chemical safe-

ty. At a February hearing, Kenneth

Cook, president of the Environmental

Working Group, called on Congress

to authorize extensive monitoring of

chemicals in adults and newborns and

to use that data to determine which

chemicals should be extensively tested

for safety. e public advocacy group

Safer Chemicals Healthy Families

wants lawmakers to phase out the use

of a category of chemicals known as

“persistent, bioaccumulative, and tox-

ic” substances, which include dioxin,

mercury, lead, and cadmium.

Meanwhile, the bad publicity trig-

gered by the reports has convinced

chemical makers and oil and natu-

ral gas companies that provide the

building blocks for most chemicals to

support changes to TSCA. Industry

executives also worry that EPA’s in-

ability to regulate problem chemicals

has opened the door to state and local

governments, who are passing a patch-

work of conf‌licting laws that will be

expensive for the companies to meet.

However, the manufacturers favor a

more-limited, chemical-by-chemical

approach to controlling hazardous

substances.

At the recent

hearings, Lautenberg

described his upcom-

ing bill, known as the

Kid-Safe Chemicals

Act, as “an invitation

for all to play a part.”

He called on Republicans to come

to the table to help negotiate a f‌inal

package. A similar measure is expect-

ed to be introduced in the House

by Representative Bobby Rush (D-

Illinois), who chairs the House En-

ergy and Commerce subcommittee

on commerce, trade and consumer

protection.

Lobbyists from both sides of the

issue had hoped to begin hammering

out compromise chemical safety legis-

lation early this year. But they concede

that the climate change debate has

made it nearly impossible for Congress

to concentrate on other environmen-

tal priorities. As a consequence, expect

the chemical safety bill to be waiting in

the wings for next year.

By Margaret Kriz Hobson

Margaret Kriz Hobson is t he en vir on me nt an d

energy writer for the National Journal. She can

be reached at mkr iz@nationaljournal.com.

T F B

All of the parties in the

chemical safety debate

agree that the time has

come to revamp TSCA