EDF Health

Formaldehyde delay rule – another defeat for Trump EPA

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: February 20, 2018

Tom Neltner, J.D., is Chemicals Policy Director

March 17, 2018 update: The court ordered EPA’s rule vacated as of June 1, 2018 based on an agreement by the parties.  This rule would have delayed the compliance deadline for the formaldehyde from composite wood products rule from 12/12/17 by one year.  The parties agreed that until March 22, 2019, products certified as compliant by the California Air Resources Board is sufficient to comply with EPA’s rule. EPA has updated its webpage to provide details. The parties reserved their right to appeal the order.

On February 16, the Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suffered another defeat in the courts.

In the latest case, the United States District Court for Northern California found that EPA violated the law when it gave industry a one-year delay to comply with formaldehyde emission standard for composite wood products. The standard was supposed to go into effect on December 12, 2017, one year after it was published in the Federal Register. Administrator Pruitt originally proposed a three month delay because, with the change in Administration, the agency failed to make a certification program essential to industry compliance operational, as originally planned. On September 25, 2017, the agency issued a final rule that gave a one-year extension instead, concluding that the delay “provides a balanced and reasoned timeline for importers, distributors, and regulated entities to establish compliant supply chain and comply with the [rule].” It also extended other deadlines in the rule.

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Overwhelming local support for EPA Chemical Assessment Program: Communities impacted by PFC contamination urge Congress to maintain critical program

By Sam Lovell / Published: February 8, 2018

Samantha Lovell is a Project Specialist.

Today, a letter signed by more than 100 people was submitted to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees urging Congress to protect the EPA Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program. The signatories come from dozens of communities across the country impacted by PFC contamination in drinking water. EPA’s IRIS program develops critical assessments of chemicals, like PFCs, that support a wide variety of decision-making from clean-up levels at contaminated sites to setting standards that ensure clean drinking water.

As we have blogged about previously, IRIS is a non-regulatory program within EPA’s science arm that produces top-tier chemical hazard assessments used across EPA program and regional offices, other federal agencies, and state and local governments to protect public health. IRIS scientists are also called on during emergency and other rapid response situations, when technical expertise is paramount and time is of the essence.

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EDF lends strong support to EPA’s IRIS Program in comments at National Academies workshop

By Jennifer McPartland / Published: February 6, 2018

Jennifer McPartland, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist with the Health Program.

Last week the National Academies held a public workshop as part of its review of changes that have been made, or that are planned, by the U.S. EPA Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program. The last National Academies review, published in 2014, pointed to significant advancements the program had already achieved since its prior 2011 report:

Overall, the committee finds that substantial improvements in the IRIS process have been made, and it is clear that EPA has embraced and is acting on the recommendations in the NRC formaldehyde report. The NRC formaldehyde committee recognized that its suggested changes would take several years and an extensive effort by EPA staff to implement. Substantial progress, however, has been made in a short time, and the present committee’s recommendations should be seen as building on the progress that EPA has already made.

As I’ve blogged before, the EPA IRIS program is a non-regulatory program that provides critical information and scientific expertise that helps ensure that the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the land where we live, work, and play are safe. For example, the IRIS program has a central role to play in helping address widespread contamination of drinking water with perfluorinated chemicals.[pullquote]The American public depends on the IRIS program and it is imperative that the program remain intact, housed apart from regulatory parts of the agency, and adequately resourced.[/pullquote]

In the comments I provided on behalf of EDF at the meeting, I emphasized that the IRIS program is:

  • critical to protecting public health;
  • making significant progress toward advancing systematic review in chemicals assessment, adopting best practices from the clinical sciences in line with earlier National Academies recommendations;
  • approaching the integration of mechanistic information in chemical assessment in a scientifically sound manner;
  • making important investments in specialized software tools designed to make the development and updating of chemical assessments more efficient; and
  • appropriately and necessarily situated within the science arm of EPA where it is best positioned to conduct strong, independent science.

The IRIS program has unquestionably been responsive to earlier recommendations of the National Academies and is arguably yet again surpassing expectations. The American public depends on the IRIS program and it is imperative that the program remain intact, housed apart from regulatory parts of the agency, and adequately resourced.

A final report by the Committee is expected this spring.

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EDF submits comments on Oregon’s proposed rules for lead testing in child care centers

By Lindsay McCormick / Published: January 24, 2018

Lindsay McCormick, Project Manager and Tom Neltner, J.D., Chemicals Policy Director

EDF recently submitted comments to the Oregon Department of Education’s Early Learning Division regarding the state’s proposed rules for lead testing for water in licensed and regulated child care centers.

Children are particularly vulnerable to lead exposure: even very low blood lead levels can impair normal brain development, contribute to learning and behavioral problems and lower IQs.

While national attention on lead in drinking water has spurred action to address lead in schools, fewer states have addressed lead in water in child care settings – even though these centers serve children at their most vulnerable ages.

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We are what we eat: New paper outlines how the regulatory gaps in the US threaten our health

By Sarah Vogel / Published: December 20, 2017

Sarah Vogel, Ph.D., is Vice-President for Health.

In a new paper published in PLoS Biology today, Maricel Maffini, Tom Neltner and I detail the regulatory gaps in how the US manages chemicals in food. We explore how failures in our current regulatory system put the public’s health at risk as exemplified in the case of perchlorate, a chemical allowed in food and a well-known endocrine disrupting compound. Perchlorate’s ability to disrupt normal functioning of the thyroid means that even low levels of exposure, especially in those with inadequate iodine intake, can adversely impact the developing brains of infants and children. It is not a chemical that should be in the food of pregnant women, infants and children. And yet it is, and the levels children consume have increased in recent years.

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Good news and bad news for children: FDA’s 2014 to 2016 food testing for lead

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: December 18, 2017

Tom Neltner, J.D., is Chemicals Policy Director and Maricel Maffini, Consultant

In Environmental Defense Fund’s June 2017 “Lead in food: A hidden health threat” report, we evaluated the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) publicly available data for 2003 to 2013 from its Total Diet Study (TDS). Since the 1970s, the TDS has tracked metals, pesticides, and nutrients in food. We found that 20% of baby food samples had detectable levels of lead compared to 14% for other foods. We also identified eight food types where more than 40% of samples had detectable lead. Finally, based on an analysis from EPA, we estimated that more than 1 million young children exceeded FDA’s limit for lead and that eliminating lead from food would save society an estimated $27 billion annually.

In November 2017, FDA publicly released TDS data for 2014 and 2015. And this December, the agency provided us with TDS data for 2016 in response to our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. We evaluated the combined information[1] and have an update that is both good news and bad news. The good news is that the overall trends for detectable rates of lead in baby food and other food, especially in 2016, appear to be on the decline. There is a similar downward trend in apple and grape juice, especially the ones marketed as baby food. Unfortunately, there appeared to be stubbornly high rates of detectable lead in teething biscuits, arrowroot cookies, and baby food carrots and sweet potatoes.

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