EDF Health

Selected tag(s): Confidential Business Information (CBI)

Compounding the problem: Why aren’t we using the safest and most effective dispersants in the Gulf?

By / Published: May 17, 2010

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

Imagine learning you have a serious disease.  Your doctor decides to treat you with a drug, noting it could have some bad side effects.  He also plans to inject you with the drug, even though it’s only been used orally before now.  That makes you nervous enough to ask for the name of the drug. “Sorry, I can’t tell you,” he says.  “It’s proprietary.”  Even if you trust your doctor, you’re now left with no way to investigate the risks and tradeoffs you’re facing.

Imagine how mad you’d be if you learned your doctor hadn’t told you there were other drugs that not only had fewer side effects, but were more effective in treating your condition.  And then you learn he’s on the Board of Directors of the company that makes the drug he prescribed.

Now consider that the patient is the Gulf of Mexico, the doctor is BP, and the drug is the oil dispersants, sold by Nalco under the trade name Corexit®, more than 500,000 gallons of which have been applied to date, with no end in sight.  Read More »

Posted in Environment, Health policy, Regulation, TSCA reform / Also tagged , , , , | Read 8 Responses

Not just kids’ play any more: TSCA reform gets serious

By / Published: April 15, 2010

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

Today, at long last, legislation to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) hit the streets.  A bill, the Safe Chemicals Act of 2010, was introduced by Senator Lautenberg in the U.S. Senate.  And just to keep things interesting and all of us on our toes, Congressmen Rush and Waxman today released the Toxic Chemicals Safety Act of 2010 that is similar but not identical and is in the form of a discussion draft, rather than a bill.

It’s been a long road to get here, but of course this is only the end of the beginning.

EDF and the Safer Chemicals Healthy Families coalition support the new legislative language and believe it includes most of the elements needed to move our outdated and broken chemical safety system into the 21st century.  We also will be seeking improvements in several areas as the bill moves forward.

For our coalition’s initial perspective on the positive aspects as well as some of the shortcomings of the legislative proposals, see the news release we issued today.  We will also soon be posting an analysis that aligns the bill’s and discussion draft’s provisions with the planks of our platform, and I’ll provide an update with a link here. Read More »

Posted in Health policy, TSCA reform / Also tagged , , , , | Read 3 Responses

Industry to EPA, Congress: Restrain me before I falsely claim CBI again!

By / Published: March 2, 2010

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

Sara Goodman of Greenwire/E&E News had a great piece picked up by the New York Times yesterday about state governments pressing for meaningful TSCA reform.  I blogged earlier about the states’ reform principles, quoting Ted Sturdevant, Director of the Washington State Department of Ecology, urging that “[w]e need a federal law that prevents contamination from happening in the first place, and phases out the harmful chemicals that are already in widespread use.”

Goodman’s piece yesterday focused more on the need for fundamental reform of confidential business information (CBI) claim allowances under TSCA.  Recall that, under TSCA, state governments as well as the public are denied access to any CBI EPA receives.  Judging by their quotes in Goodman’s piece, they’re not happy about it:  Read More »

Posted in Health policy, Regulation / Also tagged | Comments are closed

EPA IG report: New Chemicals Program fails to assure protection

By / Published: February 20, 2010

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

In a post to this blog nearly a year ago, I noted that many voices in the chemical industry were claiming that EPA’s New Chemicals Program (NCP) was robust and served as an excellent model for TSCA reform.  My post took considerable issue with that point of view, noting the many structural constraints TSCA imposes on EPA in its effort to review new chemicals:

  • No data, no problem: No up-front testing requirement or minimum data set applies to new chemicals.
  • Guessing game: EPA is forced to heavily rely on limited models and methods to predict the toxicity or behavior of a new chemical.
  • Catch-22: While EPA can require testing of a new chemical on a case-by-case basis, it must first show the chemical may pose a risk – not an easy task without any data in the first place!
  • One bite at the apple: EPA typically gets only a single opportunity to review a new chemical.
  • Crystal-ball gazing: EPA has to try to anticipate a new chemical’s for-all-time future production and use.
  • Black box: New chemical reviews lack transparency.
  • Anti-precaution: In deciding whether to require testing or controls for a new chemical, EPA equates lack of evidence of harm with evidence of no harm.

Lately, I’ve been hearing chemical industry representatives trying to resuscitate the NCP-as-model-for-TSCA-reform mantra.  So it is especially timely that a new report from EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has just been released that again thoroughly dismantles that notion.  The new report’s critique of the NCP closely mirrors the appraisal I provided earlier.  And adding weight to its analysis is the fact that EPA’s senior management has fully concurred with the report’s conclusions and recommendations. Read More »

Posted in Health policy, Regulation / Also tagged , , | Read 2 Responses

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 »

Posted in Health policy, Regulation / Also tagged , , | Read 2 Responses

Chemical industry reacts to EPA on CBI: Burglars claim to like new alarm system

By / Published: January 22, 2010

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

After EPA announced yesterday that it will deny certain confidential business information (CBI) claims that have masked the identity of risky chemicals, two chemical industry trade associations responded favorably, saying they “welcome” the move as “the right thing to do.”

Entirely missing from their responses, however, was any acknowledgment of the fact that the EPA policy shift would not have been necessary but for the huge number of illegitimate CBI claims made by none other than the member companies of those same trade associations.  In a classic case of industry-speak, the companies who have been effectively stealing information from the public about their chemicals try to obscure their nefarious role by now saying they welcome the new alarm system they have forced EPA to install.

Read More »

Posted in Health policy, Regulation / Also tagged , | Comments are closed