EDF Health

Where there’s smoke, there are mirrors: The Trump Administration’s claim to preserve TSCA implementation under its proposed EPA budget is pure illusion

By / Published: April 10, 2017

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

As more details emerge about the Trump Administration’s proposed budget cuts, it’s becoming clearer that the public’s health could well take one of the worst hits.  Trump has proposed a 31% cut to the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), paired with similarly deep reductions in staff.  The details are laid out in a March 21, 2017, internal memo from EPA’s Acting Chief Financial Officer.

Among the biggest cuts are to the Agency’s research, both research it conducts and that undertaken by labs and universities it helps fund.  EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD) would see its funding cut nearly in half, from $483 million to $250 million in 2018. The axe would fall across the full spectrum of EPA’s research:  air, climate, and energy; human health risk assessment; safe and sustainable water; sustainable communities; homeland security; and chemical safety.  EPA’s extramural STAR grant program would be entirely eliminated.

Scroll through Attachment A of the memo and you’ll see program after program proposed to be eliminated or slashed.  But there is a notable exception, on p. 9 of the Attachment:  an apparent increase for an item labeled “OCSPP / EPM / Toxic Substances: Chemical Risk Review and Reduction,” accompanied by this explanation:  “This program change increases $13,834K in non-pay resources in support of the new work required under the updated TSCA law.”

On one level, this seems like a bright spot in an otherwise dismal document, though it appears that the increase is in anticipation of the fees that the new TSCA authorizes EPA to collect from industry to help offset up to 25% of program costs.  Still, unlike most of the rest of the Agency, the program’s base budget is proposed to remain essentially intact.

No doubt this reflects the strong bipartisan support that led to last year’s passage of the Lautenberg Act and the continuing need for the chemical industry to be able to point to a viable federal chemical safety program in order to restore public and market confidence and seek to temper state and market action to restrict dangerous chemicals.  (I’ve recently blogged, however, about the mixed signals being sent by the industry; see here and here.)

While this may seem like good news, the notion that EPA could somehow neatly carve out one program area and keep it functioning well when the carving knives are rampantly slashing everything around it is, well, preposterous.   Read More »

Posted in Health policy, TSCA reform / Tagged , | Comments are closed

The hidden – and potentially dangerous – chemicals in your diet

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: April 6, 2017

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

While picking up groceries for the week, a shopper may compare brands, prices, and nutritional information to ensure they make economical and healthy choices for their family. Unfortunately, there’s much more to our food than meets the eye – or makes the label.

Approximately 10,000 food additives are allowed in our food. Food additives are substances used to flavor, color, preserve, package, process, and store our food. While some of the chemicals added to food or used in packaging are harmless, others are downright dangerous and linked to health concerns. Certain additives are linked to reproductive problems, developmental issues, and even cancer.

Perchlorate was approved in 2005 as a component of plastic packaging for dry food despite the fact that it is a known endocrine disruptor that impairs infant brain development. Benzophenone – an artificial flavor added to baked goods, dessert, beverages, and candy – is classified as a possible human carcinogen. The list goes on. No matter where you shop, your family’s health may be at risk.

Check out the cupboard below to see what else could be lurking in your food.

Illustration of a kitchen cabinet with labels showing the toxic chemicals in the bottles, boxes, and cans stored inside.

 

Read More »

Posted in BPA, FDA, Food, Health policy, Markets and Retail, Regulation / Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Authors: / Comments are closed

A primer on the new Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and what led to it

By / Published: April 3, 2017

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

There is a swirl of activity underway around implementation of the Lautenberg Act, last year’s overhaul of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), and we’ve been
blogging quite a bit about those developments.

I’ve taken a step back here from implementation, however, and developed a new “primer” that discusses what led to the new law and describes in some detail the key reforms Lautenberg made to the original TSCA and how the law works.

The primer is intended to serve as an introduction and guide to the new law for those that haven’t been steeped in the details and provides our perspective on the key provisions.  It also discusses those aspects of the new law that may be of particular interest and relevance to the public health community.

For the latest on the state of play on implementation, please keep an eye on our blog.

Posted in Health policy, TSCA reform / Tagged | Comments are closed

EPA’s ban on high-risk uses of trichloroethylene needs to get over the finish line

By Jennifer McPartland / Published: March 31, 2017

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

Trichloroethylene, or TCE for short, is a very toxic chemical. No doubt about it. Among other health effects, TCE is known to cause cancer and interfere with development.  It is also toxic to the immune system and kidneys. While the vast majority of TCE in the U.S. is used to make other chemicals (i.e., is used as a chemical intermediate), approximately 15% of TCE has other commercial and consumer purposes, including as a metal degreaser and spot cleaning agent.

Over the past several years, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took a hard look at exposures and potential health risks—including to workers, consumers, and bystanders—resulting from certain commercial and consumer uses of TCE. It found clearly excessive risks from these uses, which prompted the agency to take steps to reduce these exposures.

In December 2016, using its authority under section 6 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), EPA proposed a rule to ban the use of TCE as an aerosol degreaser and as a spot cleaning agent in commercial dry cleaning facilities—marking the first time in nearly 3 decades it has tried to restrict a chemical under TSCA. A second proposed rule to ban the use of TCE as a vapor degreaser followed a month later in January 2017 and is undergoing public comment.

The public comment period on the first TCE proposed rule closed recently. EDF filed extensive comments urging the agency to finalize the rule as soon as possible.

Highlights of our comments are below:   Read More »

Posted in Health policy, Health science, Regulation, TSCA reform / Tagged , | Comments are closed

Known knowns and known unknowns: Getting an accurate, transparent and up-to-date TSCA chemical inventory

By / Published: March 29, 2017

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

A major reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) made by last year’s Lautenberg Act was to set in motion a process to ensure that EPA (and the public, to the maximum extent practicable) know how many and which chemicals are actually in use today, and to ensure that the identities of any active chemicals that are not publicly disclosed constitute actual trade secrets.

In January, EPA took its first step to implement this reform by issuing its proposed rule for Inventory notification.  The public comment period on this proposed rule closed recently.  EDF submitted extensive comments, which are available here.

The Inventory notification requirements of TSCA as amended by the Lautenberg Act, specified under sections 8(b)(4)(A)(i) and 8(b)(4)(B)(ii), have two interlocked purposes:

  1. to ensure EPA has a full and current list of all chemical substances on the TSCA Inventory that are actively being made and processed – paramount to many other aspects of the law, especially the prioritization and risk evaluation provisions of section 6 and, more generally, in providing an up-to-date understanding of the magnitude of chemical production and use within the scope of TSCA relevant to long-term planning and resource allocation; and
  2. to ensure that the only active chemicals not identified by name on the Inventory are those whose identities are actual trade secrets, by requiring reassertion, substantiation and EPA review of any prior confidential business information (CBI) claims a company has made and seeks to retain to protect its chemicals’ identities from public disclosure on the updated Inventory.

Many of EDF’s comments are aimed at ensuring that EPA’s proposed rule serves both purposes and is fully in compliance with the law.  In contrast, many comments received from industry interests would pit the first objective against the second and do so in ways that would not comply with what the law requires.   Read More »

Posted in Health policy, TSCA reform / Tagged , , | Comments are closed

Podcast: You Make Me Sick! Cocaine in the Puget Sound!?!

By / Published: March 28, 2017

After our episodes on the impact of lead on the developing brain and how microbes teeming inside us shape our health in unbelievable ways, EDF Health is proud to present the latest episode of our podcast, You Make Me Sick. On this episode, we interviewed Dr. James Meador of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency about his research article where he found a soup of chemicals, including cocaine, in the waters of the Puget Sound. He explains how drugs and other chemicals of emerging concern can pass through wastewater treatment plants and end up in the surrounding waters and even the tissues of fish!

Click below to listen. Want more? Subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play, or check out our SoundCloud to listen via desktop!

Posted in Emerging science, Health science / Tagged | Read 1 Response