EDF Health

One solid step for REACH, one giant leap for chemicals policy

By Allison Tracy / Published: March 21, 2011

Allison Tracy is a Chemicals Policy Fellow. Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

While efforts to improve U.S. chemical safety legislation have been at, shall we say, a stand-still for the past few months, our European counterparts have been buzzing with activity.  U.S. NGOs, industry, regulators and lawmakers should be paying really close attention to all that buzz as they deliberate the shape of U.S. chemicals policy in the new Congress.

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) is currently in the thick of processing registrations received by the first major deadline under REACH, the European Union’s chemicals regulation for the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals.  November 30, 2010 was the first of three deadlines for registering existing chemicals (termed “phase-in substances” under REACH); it applied to the highest-volume and most hazardous chemicals on the market.  Some 4,700 new and existing chemicals have now been registered under REACH since it took effect in mid-2008, including about 3,500 existing chemicals subject to that first deadline based on high volume or toxicity.

In contrast to Las Vegas, what is happening in Europe is not staying in Europe.  That alone makes it worth paying attention to.  Read More »

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A modest proposal: ACC should support and defend President’s proposed budget increase for EPA chemical safety efforts

By / Published: February 15, 2011

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

President Obama unveiled his FY2012 budget yesterday, and the news was rather bleak for EPA:  a proposed 13% decrease.  But one bright spot was a proposed $16.1 million boost in funding for EPA’s chemicals management efforts using its current limited authorities under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

That additional funding, according to EPA, is to be directed at activities to further “reduce chemical risks, increase the pace of chemical hazard assessments, and provide the public with greater access to chemical information so they can make better informed decisions about their health.  Learning more about these chemicals will help protect Americans from potential threats to their health.”

What is perhaps most refreshing is EPA’s rationale for its proposal to maintain and enhance its renewed focus on chemical safety (see pages 55-56 of this EPA budget summary):

Chemicals are often released into the environment as a result of their manufacture, processing, use, and disposal. Research shows that children are getting steady infusions of industrial chemicals before they even are given solid food. Other vulnerable groups, including low-income, minority, and indigenous populations, may also be disproportionately impacted by and thus particularly at risk from chemical exposure.

So, what would the money go to, and how will the chemical industry respond?  Read More »

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Reporting deferred is right-to-know denied: ACC seeks major delays in EPA chemical reporting program

By / Published: November 2, 2010

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist. Allison Tracy is a Chemicals Policy Fellow.

Well, in its comments on EPA’s proposed rule to enhance chemical information reporting under the TSCA Inventory Update Rule (IUR), it took the American Chemistry Council (ACC) all of 5 paragraphs to get through the lip service it no doubt felt it had to pay to supporting EPA’s proposals “in principle,” and then proceed to devote 31 pages to arguments opposing virtually every element of EPA’s proposals.

Cunningly on its part, ACC’s arguments often do not oppose outright the EPA proposals.  Rather, it seeks to put off their implementation for as long as possible.  EPA’s proposed rule calls for reporting in 2011 that would provide information for years 2006 and forward.  In contrast, ACC would have EPA put off implementation of all of its proposed IUR enhancements, with the result that both EPA and the public would not get any of the additional information until at least 2015.

Like we said in the title of this post:  Reporting deferred is right-to-know denied.

We’ll be posting more about ACC’s comments in the coming weeks, but in this post, we’ll consider the core argument ACC makes for deferral:  that “the business of chemistry is product-focused, not substance focused.”  ACC would have us believe their member companies don’t know what chemicals are in any of the products (i.e., mixtures of chemicals) they make and sell.

This argument warrants – ahem – additional scrutiny.  Read More »

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Public health advocates to the chemical industry: Stop hobbling EPA

By / Published: October 12, 2010

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.  Allison Tracy is a Chemicals Policy Fellow.

Today, EDF joined with 32 other environmental justice, health and environmental organizations to file comments [PDF] with EPA that strongly support its effort to improve its ability to obtain – and share with the public – robust information about the production, processing and use of chemicals in the U.S.

While the details of EPA’s proposed rule and many of our comments are heavily wonky, the motivation and goals are far from it:  To make sure that EPA, the marketplace and the public have the information they need to guard against harm from dangerous chemicals.  That requires knowing a whole lot more than we do today about what chemicals are in commerce, in what quantities, how they’re used – essential to understanding how we may be exposed.

Robust information is the lifeblood of a sound chemicals management system.  Government needs access to comprehensive, reliable information to inform policy, programmatic and regulatory decisions it must make to carry out its mission.  The market needs access to such information to inform the myriad decisions made every day by producers, sellers and users of chemicals and products and materials made using chemicals.  And researchers, the public and groups that work in the public interest need access if they are to have confidence in, and be able meaningfully to contribute to, decisions and actions taken by government and the private sector.

In an earlier post, we made the point that the chemical industry’s reactions to these modest proposals will be a litmus test for how serious it is in acting on its rhetoric about the need for EPA and the public to have more and better information on chemicals.  With the comment period closing today for EPA’s proposed rule, look here in the coming weeks for our assessment on industry’s comments.

What follows is a summary of our comments, indicating both what we support and what more is needed.  Read More »

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EPA seeks to improve TSCA data reporting; a real litmus test looms for the chemical industry

By / Published: August 20, 2010

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

While I was on vacation last week, EPA’s proposed rule to improve chemical information reporting under its so-called Inventory Update Rule (IUR) was finally published in the Federal Register.  (I say “finally” because the proposal languished for almost 6 months over at OMB, nearly double the 90 days such mandatory reviews are supposed to take.  That unfortunate delay is curious given the relatively modest changes that appear to have been made by OMB – mostly limited to compelling EPA to shift a few elements from proposals to options open to comment, and requiring EPA to expand the range of issues on which it now seeks comment.)

I won’t summarize the EPA proposals here; EPA’s factsheet does a good job of that, and Daniel Rosenberg at NRDC has also nicely recapped the proposal on his blog.  Suffice it to say that the proposed changes would go far to address the many failings of the current IUR, which amply manifested themselves in the last reporting cycle and severely hampered EPA’s ability to assess high production volume (HPV) chemicals under its ill-fated ChAMP Initiative.

So how will the chemical industry react?  Here’s why I’ll be watching intently.  Read More »

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Worse than we thought: Decades of out-of-control CBI claims under TSCA

By / Published: February 12, 2010

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

I recently obtained – not without some effort on both EPA’s and my part – a scanned copy of a 1992 report commissioned by EPA innocuously titled “Influence of CBI Requirements on TSCA Implementation,” authored by the now-defunct Hampshire Research Associates.  I subsequently found a copy in an old EPA docket, located here (6 MB PDF file).

This understated yet remarkable report is a veritable treasure trove of information that painstakingly documents the rampant rise in illegitimate confidential business information (CBI) claims made by the chemical industry in the first decade after passage of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) – and the very limited options available to EPA to stop such activity (despite recent admirable efforts on its part). Read More »

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