EDF Health

Selected tag(s): Industry tactics

Not playing nice: The American Chemistry Council solidifies its claim to being the “industry of no”

By / Published: July 30, 2010

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

If you had any doubt when reading my post earlier this week that the chemical industry isn’t serious about real TSCA reform, watch American Chemistry Council (ACC) President and CEO Cal Dooley’s hard-line performance at yesterday’s hearing before a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee (video link at the bottom of this page).  The legislative hearing focused on H.R. 5820, the Rush-Waxman Toxic Chemicals Safety Act of 2010 that was introduced last week.

All the themes I struck in my earlier blog post Mr. Dooley played out in spades:  more loud and long complaints aimed at every aspect of the bill; placing the worst possible interpretation on any provision subject to interpretation; playing the China and job-loss cards over and over; and last but not least, offering not a single constructive proposal of his own for reform.

A very different industry voice was also at the witness table, however – Howard Williams, V.P. & General Manager of the Pennsylvania division of Construction Specialties.  Mr. Williams deftly countered all of ACC’s theatrics, embracing all of the bill’s key provisions and making a strong business case for them.  Read More »

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Should we continue to take the chemical industry at its word when it insists it’s still for TSCA reform?

By / Published: July 28, 2010

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

I’m one of those throwbacks that loves to read a hard copy of a newspaper in the morning.  One thing the hard copies provide that reading online doesn’t is the ability to take in those full-page paid ads that Corporate America runs on a virtually daily basis.

Lately, not surprisingly, ads from “the people of America’s oil and natural gas industry” – aka the American Petroleum Institute (API) – are appearing frequently in the New York Times and Washington Post.  In one recent ad, API asserts:  “Above all else, the people of America’s oil and natural gas industry are committed to safe operations.”  That one is a little hard to swallow, coming as it does not only right on the heels of the largest environmental disaster in American history, but after years of staunch opposition to stronger safety regulation.  It seems API is now all for safety, after years of being against it.

This got me thinking about the chemical industry.  The industry’s main trade association, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), now says it’s all for “modernizing” TSCA, after years of opposing any such effort.  Why am I getting suspicious that there may be no there there?  Read More »

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Raising the bar for chemical safety will spur, not stifle, innovation

By / Published: May 9, 2010

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

An emerging chemical industry talking point in TSCA reform is the claim that imposing new requirements on new chemicals will somehow stifle innovation.  The milder manifestation of this perspective emanates from those who oppose requiring a safety determination for new chemicals unless they raise major red flags in an initial review.

But some in the industry go further, arguing that even requiring safety data for new chemicals would put the big chill on development of new chemicals.

I beg to differ with both arguments.  This post will make the opposite case, and will also argue that true innovation embraces rather than shuns safety, and demands the information needed to demonstrate it. Read More »

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Up from the depths of deception: The chemical industry’s “astroturf” group loses a member, the Ocean Futures Society

By / Published: March 23, 2010

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

Remember all of my earlier posts about the industry front group, the Coalition for Chemical Safety?  My major complaint was, not that the chemical industry was organizing itself or even seeking support from others, but rather that it was doing so through deception:  Pretending to be something it was not.  Never revealing who is behind the coalition, who’s paying the bills.  Never revealing it was put together by one of the nation’s premier “astroturf” PR firms.  And most importantly, not coming clean about its real identity to the businesses and organizations it approaches to sign up.

Well, the Ocean Futures Society, an ocean protection group founded and led by Jean-Michel Cousteau, has just identified itself as one of the duped groups taken in by the Coalition for Chemical Safety (CCS).  Read More »

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Householder words — and my reply

By / Published: February 2, 2010

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

Interesting exchange this afternoon between Joe Householder, Executive Director of the Coalition for Chemical Safety, and myself in comments on my last blog post.  See Mr. Householder’s comment here, and my reply here.

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

Chemical industry “astroturf” group pads membership with agribusinesses – even though TSCA doesn’t regulate ag chemicals!

By / Published: February 2, 2010

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

The chemical industry’s fake grassroots group formed to feign broad support for its version of reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) – the Coalition for Chemical Safety, issued a press release today touting that it’s surpassed 150 members.

I blogged earlier about how some of the small businesses it has enlisted apparently weren’t told about the Coalition backers’ actual positions on toxic chemicals.

Now a review of the 150 members that have allowed the Coalition to meet its latest “milestone” reveals it has supplemented unwitting small businesses with dozens of agriculture-related companies and associations – despite the fact that TSCA doesn’t regulate ag chemicals!

Who knew that growing astroturf requires pesticides?? Read More »

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