EDF Health

The Flint Water Crisis Is Not Over and Congress Must Not Leave Them Behind

By Jack Pratt / Published: September 28, 2016

More than two years since a public health disaster hit Flint Michigan, Congress has yet to provide needed assistance. Some on both sides of the aisle are working to advance help for Flint, but the path forward remains unclear, with little time to spare on Congress’ legislative calendar. Congress must not leave town without taking action to help Flint.

EDF recently joined partners in the environmental community to help support a delegation of community leaders from Flint who came to Washington to lobby for overdue federal aid. Our friends at National Wildlife Federation, along with Sierra Club and many others, helped coordinate an effort to bring these Flint voices to Washington.  The stories from Flint have been well-documented in the press, but to hear them in person is another thing altogether. I am hopeful it had as much of an impact on Capitol Hill as it did those of us who joined their meetings.

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Posted in General interest / Comments are closed

Behind the Label: the Blueprint for Safer Chemicals in the Marketplace

By Jack Pratt / Published: April 21, 2015

Boma Brown-West is a manager on EDF’s Supply Chain Team within the Corporate Partnerships Program.

If you’re in the business of using chemicals to make consumer products – things like shampoo or baby lotions, spray cleaners or laundry soap – the last few years have likely been anything but dull. State legislatures have been passing laws restricting certain chemicals from products; consumers are demanding more transparency about product ingredients; and some of the nation’s biggest retailers, including Walmart and Target, have issued chemical policies of their own.

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Posted in Industry influence, Markets and Retail / Comments are closed

A Columnist Wonders: Can Congress Do Its Job?

By Jack Pratt / Published: March 16, 2015

Jack Pratt is Chemicals Campaign Director

“It’s not that members of Congress don’t work hard…yet they regularly manage to avoid accomplishing anything even on those matters on which they overwhelmingly agree,” observed Melinda Hennebergert this morning in Bloomberg Politics.

She was talking, in part, about the new bill to reform America’s broken chemical safety law. Everyone agrees the current system is a national disgrace, preventing the EPA from banning even known carcinogens like asbestos. Yet there’s fierce opposition to the only legislative vehicle that could successfully change things.

Hennebergert notes that some opponents to the bill, which has co-sponsors across the ideological and partisan spectrum, object to the fact that it is a compromise necessary to pass Congress. She calls it the “half-a-loaf or none conundrum” and says that “in the increasingly rare cases of bipartisan agreement, paralyzing pushback” now seems inevitable.

Her frustration is clear, especially since “it has already been 26 years since any environmental bill of this magnitude (1990’s Clean Air Act) has passed.”

She notes that some opponents of the bill favor alternative legislation – a bill without bipartisan sponsors or the compromises necessary to gain traction. It’s an all or nothing approach and, with it, “nothing is just what citizens may get.”

The question is, can Congress prove her wrong and get something big done to protect public health and the environment?

Posted in Health policy, Regulation, TSCA reform / Comments are closed