EDF Health

Premier medical organizations sound alarm on toxic chemicals’ harm to reproductive health

By EDF Blogs / Published: September 24, 2013

Joanna Slaney is an EDF consultant.

As a mom, I know what it’s like to worry about the health and safety of my children. You want to do everything you can to protect your kids, and help them stay healthy and strong. That’s why I think most parents will want to pay attention to the statement released today from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM). The joint opinion from two of the country’s most prestigious medical organizations details how prenatal exposure to certain chemicals is linked to miscarriages, stillbirths, and birth defects. These groups are urging ob-gyns to advocate for government policy changes needed to ensure we identify and reduce exposure to toxic environmental agents.

EDF Health is very pleased that ACOG and ASRM are expanding awareness of the serious threats toxic chemicals can pose to our health. We urge everyone, especially parents, to take a closer look at this joint statement.

EDF Health has issued the following statement: “Today’s statement from ACOG and ASRM is the latest reminder about the devastating impact toxic chemicals can have on our health,” said Dr. Sarah Vogel, Director, EDF Environmental Health. “Even more shocking is that most everyday chemicals have never been tested for safety.  Our doctors are telling us we need to fix America’s chemical laws to protect our families’ health.”

To learn more about the health impact of toxic chemicals, please go here.

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EDF Applauds New Walmart Policy That Promises Safer Products for Consumers

By EDF Blogs / Published: September 12, 2013

Here is EDF’s release on Walmart’s announcement today:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EDF Applauds New Walmart Policy That Promises Safer Products for Consumers

New chemicals policy today promises to bring safer, healthier products
to the 80 percent of Americans that shop at Walmart

September 12, 2013

CONTACT: Katie Ware, kware@edf.org, (212) 616-1283

BENTONVILLE, Ark.—Walmart announced a new chemicals policy today that promises to bring safer, healthier products to the 80 percent of Americans that shop there. The policy was unveiled during Walmart’s Global Sustainability Milestone Meeting and focuses on chemical ingredients in consumables –household cleaners, personal care products and cosmetics.

Walmart is calling for expanded ingredient disclosure, targeting about ten key chemicals of concern for substitution with better ingredients and looking to take its private brand products through a rigorous screening process.

“Today’s announcement is yet another indication that consumers, advocates and business are working together to fill the void left by Washington’s inaction on chemical safety,” said Sarah Vogel, Director of EDF’s Environmental Health program.

EDF worked closely with Walmart to prioritize the removal of toxic chemicals in household, personal care and beauty products. Walmart’s new chemicals policy targets about ten hazardous chemicals in consumer products for replacement with safer ingredients and significantly expands ingredient disclosure to the public.

“Some companies stop at issuing a restricted substances list,” said Vogel. “No other company is requiring the all-important, but often forgotten, second step to truly transformational phase-outs: putting a system in place that avoids regrettable chemical substitutions. EDF commends this aggressive new policy.”

 

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Environmental Defense Fund (edf.org), a leading national nonprofit organization, creates transformational solutions to the most serious environmental problems. EDF links science, economics, law and innovative private-sector partnerships. Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/EnvDefenseFund and on Facebook at facebook.com/EnvDefenseFund.

 

Also posted in Markets and Retail / Tagged | Comments are closed

NGOs ask Senators to investigate chronic delays in OMB’s review of TSCA regulatory actions

By / Published: September 10, 2013

Rachel Shaffer is a research assistant.  Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

Last Friday afternoon, we received the discouraging news that EPA has withdrawn two draft rules it had developed under its Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) authority.  As discussed in our earlier blog post, these proposed rules had been kept in limbo by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), for 1,213 and 619 days, respectively – far longer than the 90-day limit for such reviews set by Executive Order 12866.

Unfortunately, these delays are anything but unique.  OIRA’s reviews of draft rules and other actions now routinely exceed by large margins their mandated deadlines.  Our examination of EPA’s TSCA regulatory agenda over the past several years reveals just how extensive OIRA’s “rulemaking purgatory” has become.  

Since 2009, a total of 33 TSCA-related notices or proposed or final regulatory actions have been submitted to OIRA:

  • Eighteen submissions were proposed or final rules subject to a 90-calendar-day deadline.  Reviews of only six of these rules were completed within this deadline; on average, they have been held at OIRA for over 300 days.
  • The other 15 were advance notices of proposed rulemakings or other notices subject to a 10-working-day deadline.  Of these notices, only one was completed within this deadline; on average, they were kept under review by OIRA for over 70 working days.

Today, EDF, Earthjustice, Union of Concerned Scientists, and League of Conservation Voters sent a letter documenting these delays and expressing our serious concerns to Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Chairman and Ranking Member, respectively, of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight, Federal Rights, and Agency Action.  Our letter emphasized that such delays both prevent the public from providing input in the rulemaking process and limit EPA’s already constrained ability to obtain and share basic safety information on chemicals under TSCA.

Our letter was sent in response to an August 1, 2013, hearing held by that subcommittee, titled Justice Delayed: The Human Cost of Regulatory Paralysis, which began a much-needed discussion of the real-world impact of OIRA’s protracted review of proposed regulations.  We urged a further investigation into the causes and consequences of this too-hidden obstruction of the long-established rulemaking process. 

You can read our letter here, and stay tuned for updates in the coming months.

 

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Stymied at every turn: EPA withdraws two draft TSCA proposals in the face of endless delay at OMB

By / Published: September 6, 2013

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has withdrawn two draft rules it had developed under authority of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  EPA originally sent the proposed rules to the White House for its review way back in 2010 and 2011. 

Despite a clear requirement that White House reviews of draft proposed rules be completed within 90 days, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) [which is part of the Office of Management and Budget, OMB] sat on these two draft proposals for 1,213 and 619 days, respectively.  Faced presumably with the reality that OIRA was never going to let EPA even propose the rules for public comment, EPA decided to withdraw them.  Read More »

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EDF comments at EPA workshop on applying systematic review methodology to IRIS assessments

By / Published: August 27, 2013

Rachel Shaffer is a research assistant.

Lately, much of the attention of the environmental health community has been focused on Capitol Hill and the Lautenberg-Vitter chemical safety reform bill that would amend the antiquated Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Yet significant – if somewhat esoteric – developments are underway at EPA that will also have major impacts on how the safety of chemicals is assessed.  EPA has been implementing improvements to its Integrated Risk Information System, commonly known as “IRIS.” The purpose of the IRIS program is to evaluate information on the effects of potential exposures to environmental substances and provide health hazard assessments, which are then used to support regulatory decisions across the agency.  And while it isn’t directly affected by TSCA or its reform, IRIS provides both indirect and direct support to the office at EPA that does administer TSCA.  

In other words, what happens in IRIS doesn’t stay in IRIS.

So… what’s IRIS up to? Read More »

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Senate hearing builds momentum for improving and moving the Chemical Safety Improvement Act

By / Published: August 1, 2013

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

Yesterday’s mega-hearing (19 witnesses, 5+ hours!) on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), held by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), lent new urgency to the need for advancing long-overdue reform of this flawed and outmoded law.  And it opened a promising new phase in the long effort to get reform legislation that would protect public health through the Committee and to the Senate floor.

The hearing provided a formal opportunity for witnesses to discuss strengths as well as many of the concerns with the Chemical Safety Improvement Act (CSIA), S. 1009, the bipartisan bill authored by the late Senator Frank Lautenberg and Senator David Vitter that now has 25 Republican and Democratic cosponsors.  Notably, despite the concerns, witness after witness called on the Committee (10 members of which attended the hearing) to work to improve this bill. 

There seemed to be a remarkable level of agreement (though certainly not consensus) among both witnesses and members on several points: 

  • First, the political opening created by the introduction of CSIA represents the best chance we’ve seen in a long time to fix TSCA, with the bill serving as the starting point for the Committee.
  • Second, the compromise bill has significant flaws that need to be addressed. 
  • Third, there is a willingness on all sides to address these concerns with the current bill, and to work to keep it bipartisan. 
  • And finally, needed fixes can and should be made as the bill is taken up and advanced by the Committee.

I’ll have more to say in future posts about the concerns we and others have with the bill and how we think they can be addressed while keeping the forward momentum that was on display today. 

That won’t be easy, but as my colleague, Daniel Rosenberg of NRDC, in his testimony yesterday, brilliantly summed up the point we’re at now:  “This is no time to throw up our hands, but to roll up our sleeves.”

 

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