EDF Health

FDA has new funding to start modernizing how it assesses food chemical risks

By / Published: April 22, 2022

Joanna Slaney, Sr. Director, Federal Affairs; and Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative

For the first time in recent memory Congress approved funds for FDA specifically to address food safety from potentially dangerous chemicals that may present health hazards. Now it’s time for the agency to get to work.

Congress appropriated $7 million for “Emerging Chemical and Toxicology Issues” and $11 million for “Maternal and Infant Health and Nutrition” for the current fiscal year. While these numbers are below the agency requests of $19.7 million and $18 million respectively, the funds can help FDA meet its stated goals to bring on new staff and to:

  • “Enhance and update its approach to chemicals—both those directly added as food ingredients and those that come into the food supply through food contact and environmental contamination” and
  • Address issues of concern that include lead, cadmium, and arsenic in children’s food.

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Momentum is building to fund lead pipe replacement across the country: New video

By / Published: June 10, 2021

Joanna Slaney, Legislative Director and Sam Lovell, Communications Manager. 

As Congress pursues infrastructure legislation, it’s clear that replacing lead pipes is a priority issue. This is welcome news for our health, the country’s infrastructure, and the economy. We are glad to see the attention on this issue from Congress and from the Administration with the inclusion of funding to fully replace lead pipes in the President’s American Jobs Plan.

And it’s no wonder there is growing interest in this initiative, the latest polling from the Navigator shows support for funding lead pipe replacement at 83% nationally – including 73% of Republicans, 80% of Independents, and 91% of Democrats. This echoes earlier polls which have found similar overwhelming bipartisan support. 

As EDF has written before, a $45 billion investment in lead pipe replacement over ten years would:

  • Protect public health by enabling water systems around the country to quickly begin eliminating the LSLs to protect residents.
  • More than pay for itself. Fully replacing lead service lines across the country would yield more than $205 billion in societal benefits over 35 years — a 450% return on the investment – due to prevented heart disease deaths from adult lead exposure.
  • Permanently upgrade infrastructure by facilitating critical upgrades to water distribution systems in a way that protects residents from increased lead in their drinking water when the LSL is disturbed.
  • Reduce disparities by enabling utilities to fully replace LSLs, thereby resolving equity concerns that utilities currently face in replacing the lead pipe on private property.
  • Create jobs for the plumbers and contractors who will perform the LSL replacements. This is shovel-ready work that involves construction and plumbing crews conducting the replacement.

With bills in both the House and the Senate focusing on funding lead pipe replacement, it’s important we keep pushing to ensure the federal government follows through on getting the lead out of our drinking water. 

See EDF’s new video that explains why lead service line replacement is important, and why it’s a no-brainer for the federal government to invest in.

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An issue nearly everyone agrees on: It’s time to fund lead pipe replacement

By / Published: March 25, 2021

Joanna Slaney, Legislative Director, and Sam Lovell, Project Manager.

As Congress looks to various infrastructure priorities in the coming months to get the country back on track, funding replacement of lead pipes should be an essential part of that effort. Recent polling from Black Millennials for Flint, BlueGreen Alliance and EDF demonstrates that there is strong bipartisan support for this initiative across party lines and regions of the country. Funding lead pipe replacement will protect health, create jobs, permanently improve water infrastructure, and reduce health inequities. It’s time for action.

And we are already seeing movement on this important issue, with legislation in the first few months of the new Congress in both the US House and Senate including lead pipe replacement as a key infrastructure priority.

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In a vote for reducing lead exposure and for clean water, House passes lead pipe replacement amendment

By / Published: July 1, 2020

Joanna Slaney, Legislative Director, Health and Tom Neltner, J.D., Chemicals Policy Director.

Today is a good day in the fight against lead exposure: the U.S. House of Representatives has passed an amendment to provide $22.5 billion to replace lead service lines (LSL) – the lead pipes connecting the water main under the street to the home – across the country, prioritizing low-income and environmental justice communities. The amendment to the Moving Forward Act (HR 2), was sponsored by Representatives Tlaib, Kildee, Slotkin, Cicilline, and Moore, and it received bipartisan support.

Permanently removing sources of lead is critically important, as there is no safe level of lead exposure. From learning and behavioral problems in children to cardiovascular disease and hypertension in adults – lead exposure has major impacts on our health. And turning on the tap in a home with an LSL is essentially drinking from a lead straw.

That’s why EDF, with our partners, worked to strongly support this amendment. And that’s why we’ve been working on other initiatives that will accelerate replacement of these lead pipes across the country. With an estimated 9.3 million LSLs remaining in 11,000 communities, full replacement will be a massive challenge. But – as EDF has seen with our work recognizing states and communities taking action on LSLs – momentum is building. Our latest estimates show that:

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EPA refuses to extend TCE comment deadline, ignoring requests from Congress, health groups

By / Published: April 28, 2020

Joanna Slaney, Legislative Director and Lindsay McCormick, Program Manager. 

Yesterday, in the midst of the COVID-19 national emergency, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) closed the comment period on an extremely flawed draft risk evaluation on the toxic chemical, trichloroethylene (TCE).

Due to the many scientific and legal concerns raised by the draft risk evaluation, and its significance for any future regulation of TCE, the draft needs thorough and careful review from experts, the public, and other affected stakeholders. However, EPA refused to delay the deadline for the draft risk evaluation’s comment period, despite the growing hardships and major disruptions resulting from the current COVID-19 crisis.  EPA now seems intent on racing to the finish line with its flawed evaluation, ignoring multiple requests to ensure the document is fully vetted:

  • Congress: In two separate letters from the House and Senate, Members of Congress raised concerns with EPA moving forward with various rulemakings and scientific reviews without sufficient opportunity for expert and public input in light of the pandemic – explicitly referencing the TCE draft risk evaluation as a prime example.
  • Health groups: Health organizations whose staff and members are on the front lines of the pandemic requested that EPA extend the public comment period until after the national emergency is lifted due to severe capacity constraints. EPA did not respond.
  • Impacted communities: In early March, nearly 300 people from communities grappling with TCE contamination asked EPA to hold a public meeting to allow them “to ask questions of the agency and engage in critical dialogue.” EPA denied the request.

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The next infrastructure stimulus bill is the right place for lead pipe replacement funding – to create jobs, save money and provide safer water for all

By / Published: April 16, 2020

Joanna Slaney, Legislative Director and Tom Neltner, J.D., Chemicals Policy Director.

Note to readers: As we all grapple with the grave global health challenge from COVID-19, we want to acknowledge the essential service that the public health professionals at water utilities provide in delivering safe water not only for drinking but for washing our hands and our surroundings.

During the past few weeks, Congress has taken extraordinary measures to provide much-needed emergency relief to people as we collectively struggle with the COVID-19 crises. Over the coming months, lawmakers have said they will turn their attention to providing funding to stimulate the economy with a focus on water infrastructure as a priority. Lead pipe replacement should be an essential part of that effort.

To guide the Congressional effort, EDF and hundreds of others signed onto U.S. Water Alliance’s COVID-19 Relief and Recovery: Guiding Principles to Secure Our Water Future. The four principles are:

  1. Ensure water is reliable and affordable to all
  2. Strengthen water utilities of all sizes
  3. Close the water access gap
  4. Fuel economic recovery by investing in water systems

In line with of our support for these principles, EDF is advocating that Congress provide $45 billion for water utilities to fully replace lead service lines (LSL) – the lead pipes connecting a home to the water main under the street. Today, there are more than nine million homes still serviced by LSLs in the country, exposing millions of children and adults to the myriad of harms associated with lead. For children, these harms include undermining brain development. In adults, lead has been shown to cause heart disease, cancer, and impact the neurological, reproductive, and immune systems. While there is broad consensus that LSLs must be fully removed to protect public health, funding challenges have stymied progress.

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