EDF Health

5 ways we’re holding the Trump Administration accountable on the TSCA 4-year anniversary

By EDF Blogs / Published: June 22, 2020

It’s been four years since Congress passed legislation overhauling our chemical safety system to better protect American families. In the time since that bipartisan achievement, the Trump administration has worked to systematically undermine the law and weaken chemical safety.

But we’re not sitting idly by, and we have the law on our side. This year, on the anniversary of the legislation’s passage, we’re highlighting some of the victories we’ve had and ways we’re fighting back to demand EPA protect the American people from harmful chemicals.

1. Winning important legal cases to hold EPA to the letter of the law

Last year, in response to a challenge from EDF, a federal court delivered a strong rebuke to the Trump EPA’s efforts to undermine the public’s right to know about the chemicals in our homes, schools, and workplaces. The ruling on our lawsuit means that companies can’t hide, and EPA must make public, more information about chemicals in use today.

And a ruling last year in a different case – brought by health, labor and environmental groups, including EDF – has already increased pressure on EPA to stop ignoring known sources of exposure to chemicals when assessing their risks. Conducting the comprehensive risk reviews that the law requires is critical to protecting health, especially for vulnerable populations, like children, pregnant women, and fenceline communities.

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Reveal News exposes Trump Administration’s disregard for protecting the public from a highly dangerous chemical: 5 key takeaways

By / Published: March 2, 2020

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

This weekend, Elizabeth Shogren at Reveal News published an in-depth investigative report and hour-long radio segment delving into the Trump EPA’s latest abandonment of science and its serious consequences for public health.  The story focuses on the ubiquitous solvent trichloroethylene (TCE), a known human carcinogen and neurotoxicant that is also linked to birth defects at very low levels of exposure.

In reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in 2016, Congress directed EPA to conduct comprehensive reviews of the risks posed by TCE and other widely used chemicals.  EPA was charged with identifying risks both to the general public and to “vulnerable subpopulations,” including pregnant women, infants, workers, and others.

EPA’s draft risk evaluation of TCE was released on February 21.  It suffers from many of the same gaping flaws as do EPA’s draft risk evaluations for other chemicals.  Once again, EPA has utterly failed to carry out the clear intent of the law, putting our health at greater risk.

  • EPA has ignored all exposures of the general population to TCE that arise from releases of the chemical to air, water and land – amounting to millions of pounds annually.
  • EPA has once again assumed, without any supporting data, that workers will wear personal protective equipment and that it will be effective in eliminating or reducing exposures.
  • EPA has inflated the acceptable level of risk of cancer that will allow workers to be exposed to as much as 100 times more of the chemical.

[pullquote]“This decision is grave. It not only underestimates the lifelong risks of the chemical, especially to the developing fetus, it also presents yet another example of this administration bowing to polluters’ interests over public health.”

— Dr. Jennifer McPartland[/pullquote]But in this new draft EPA has gone even further in abandoning both science and the law.  Reveal’s exposé identifies key changes made at the 11th hour to the draft that were forced on career staff at the agency by the White House.

Here are five key takeaways from the Reveal story:  Read More »

Posted in Health policy, Health science, Industry influence, Public health, Regulation, TSCA reform, Worker safety / Tagged , , | Comments are closed

Think PFAS in food packaging are safe simply because FDA accepted their use? Think again.

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: November 13, 2019

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

[pullquote]

PFAS manufacturers’ claims that the agency demands scientific data, including toxicity and exposure, and conducts a rigorous review before allowing the use of the chemicals in contact with food are not accurate.

[/pullquote]Per- and poly-fluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS)—recently dubbed “forever chemicals”—have received a large amount of national attention, mostly due to contamination of drinking water affecting millions of Americans. Since June 2019, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released its testing results from three studies, questions have arisen about food as a source of PFAS exposure. The main routes by which PFAS enter the food supply are environmental contamination—such as from nearby chemical manufacturing facilities, airports or Department of Defense operations—and from food packaging and processing equipment.

With greater attention on PFAS in food, we’ve noticed several misleading PFAS manufacturers’ talking points asserting that FDA review and acceptance is required for any PFAS to be used in contact with food, and that, due to this review, PFAS that go through this process are safe. However, their claims that the agency demands scientific data, including toxicity and exposure, and conducts a rigorous review before allowing the use of the chemicals in contact with food are not accurate.

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The Trump EPA is setting back chemicals policies by decades

By / Published: June 13, 2019

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


Tacoma, WA 1972

As we approach the third anniversary of the historic passage of bipartisan legislation to overhaul our nation’s broken chemical safety system, we’re hearing that political appointees at the agency are gearing up to celebrate their “successes” in implementing the law.[pullquote]Even more disturbing than its individual actions are the methodical steps the Trump EPA is taking to dismantle decades of progress in our country’s chemicals policies.[/pullquote]

While the chemical industry may well have things to celebrate, it’s simply not the case for the rest of us:  Comments from former top EPA officials, members of Congress, state and local governments, labor groups, firefighters, water utilities, public health groups, and a broad range of environmental groups make crystal clear that there’s nothing warranting celebration.  EPA’s actions are threatening the health of American families.

But as I reflect on how implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) has gone off the rails under the Trump EPA, even more disturbing than its individual actions are the methodical steps it is taking to dismantle decades of progress in our country’s chemicals policies.  In this post, I’ll briefly highlight five such policies and how this EPA is undermining them:

  • Pollution prevention
  • Inherent safety and hazard reduction
  • Protection of vulnerable subpopulations and environmental justice
  • Holistic, real-world risk assessment
  • Public right to know

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Posted in Health policy, Industry influence, Regulation, TSCA reform, Worker safety / Tagged , , , , | Read 2 Responses

Wheeler piles on more deception trying to defend EPA’s corrupt actions on formaldehyde

By / Published: April 10, 2019

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

In a series of recent hearings Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler has sought to justify his and his agency’s corrupt decisions to kill off a health assessment of formaldehyde done by career scientists in the agency’s science arm (IRIS) and resurrect it under the control of conflicted political appointees.[pullquote]Once again, the Trump EPA is elevating private interests over the public interest – and offering up deceptions to try to obfuscate and cover up its real intent.[/pullquote]

Recall that under Wheeler’s and his predecessor’s leadership, a draft of the IRIS assessment, ready since fall 2017 for release for public comment and peer review, has been suppressed.  Also recall that EPA leadership ran a phony priority-setting process last fall under the direction of yet another conflicted political appointee in order to claim that the IRIS formaldehyde assessment is no longer a priority for the agency.  Aspects of this scheme were highlighted in a recent report of Congress’ Government Accountability Office (GAO).  Finally, recall that a scant few weeks after that pronouncement, EPA declared last month that it intends to name formaldehyde a “high-priority substance” under TSCA.

Now to the next installment in this corrupt scheme:  Read More »

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GAO affirms the Trump EPA’s political manipulation of the IRIS formaldehyde assessment

By / Published: March 7, 2019

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

I blogged last month about the Trump EPA’s corrupt actions to bury the long-awaited assessment of the carcinogen formaldehyde conducted by the agency’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program.  That post cited an article in the Wall Street Journal that noted a forthcoming report by Congress’ Government Accountability Office (GAO) that was expected to expose the suspect process used by conflicted political appointees at EPA to prevent public release and completion of that scientific assessment over the past 15 months.  We also noted disturbing indications that EPA intends to redo the assessment of formaldehyde under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), under the control of political appointees who came to EPA directly from the chemical industry’s main trade association and while there led its efforts to undermine IRIS. [pullquote]GAO confirms in spades the concerted efforts by the agency’s political leadership to fabricate a rationale for abandoning the formaldehyde assessment, which has been ready for public and peer review since the fall of 2017.[/pullquote]

GAO’s report is out, and yesterday it featured prominently at a Senate hearing at which top GAO officials testified.  That testimony confirms in spades the recounting in our earlier blog post of the concerted efforts by the agency’s political leadership to fabricate a rationale for abandoning the formaldehyde assessment, which has been ready for public and peer review since the fall of 2017.

In the wake of the GAO report, Senator Carper and other members of Congress from both houses have sent a letter to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler calling on him to complete the formaldehyde assessment and release documents pertaining to potential ethical and scientific integrity policy violations by EPA political appointees.

I won’t further rehash our earlier post, but will simply post a key excerpt from the hearing, an exchange between Senator Tom Carper (DE) and Mark Gaffigan, Managing Director for Natural Resources and Environment at GAO.  I’ll highlight some key passages in which GAO describes what its investigation found.

EXCERPT FROM YESTERDAY’S GAO TESTIMONY   Read More »

Posted in Health policy, Health science, Industry influence / Tagged , , | Comments are closed