EDF Health

Selected tag(s): EPA

Loosening industry’s grip on EPA’s new chemicals program

By / Published: September 22, 2021

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

[I delivered a shorter version of these comments at the September 22, 2021 webinar titled “Hair on Fire and Yes Packages! How the Biden Administration Can Reverse the Chemical Industry’s Undue Influence,” cosponsored by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), NH Safe Water Alliance, and EDF.  A recording of the webinar will shortly be available here.  The webinar, second in a series, follows on EPA whistleblower disclosures first appearing in a complaint filed by PEER that are detailed in a series of articles by Sharon Lerner in The Intercept.

The insularity of the New Chemicals Program – where staff only interact with industry and there is no real engagement with other stakeholders – spawns and perpetuates these industry-friendly and un-health-protective policies.

I have closely tracked the Environmental Protection Agency’s New Chemicals Program for many years.  Reluctantly, I have come to the conclusion that the program does not serve the agency’s mission and the public interest, but rather the interests of the chemical industry.  Despite the major reforms Congress made to the program in 2016 when it overhauled the Toxic Substances Control Act, the New Chemicals Program is so badly broken that nothing less than a total reset can fix the problems.

Revelations emerging through responses Environmental Defense Fund finally received to a FOIA request we made two years ago, and through the disclosures of courageous whistleblowers who did or still work in the New Chemicals Program, confirm what I have long suspected, looking in from the outside.  The program:

  • uses practices that allow the chemical industry to easily access and hold sway over EPA reviews and decisions on the chemicals they seek to bring to market;
  • has developed a deeply embedded culture of secrecy that blocks public scrutiny and accountability;
  • employs policies – often unwritten – that undermine Congress’ major reforms to the law and reflect only industry viewpoints; and
  • operates through a management system and managers, some still in place, that regularly prioritize industry’s demands for quick decisions that allow their new chemicals onto the market with no restrictions, over reliance on the best science and protection of public and worker health.

Many of the worst abuses coming to light took place during the Trump administration, and it is tempting to believe the change in administrations has fixed the problems.  It has not.  The damaging practices, culture, policies and management systems predate the last administration and laid the foundation for the abuses.  Highly problematic decisions continue to be made even in recent weeks.

I am encouraged by recent statements and actions of Dr. Michal Freedhoff, Assistant Administrator of the EPA office that oversees TSCA implementation.  They clearly are moves in the right direction.  But it is essential that the deep-rooted, systemic nature of the problem be forthrightly acknowledged and forcefully addressed.

Let me provide some examples of each of the problems I just noted.  Read More »

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

A consequential day in the effort to prevent lead poisoning

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: May 18, 2021

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

Lead poisoning prevention advocates should mark May 14, 2021 as a consequential day in our collective efforts to protect public health. Last week, two decisions and a preliminary report were issued that lay a solid foundation for further progress. When translated into action, the decisions and report should result in significantly reduced lead exposure for children. These developments were:

  • A court ruling on lead-based paint hazard standards: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reconsider – and most likely tighten – the agency’s 2019 revisions to its lead-based paint (LBP) hazard standard that define the levels of lead in paint, dust, and soil that are dangerous. The current standards remain in place until EPA revises them to comply with the law and the court’s order. This decision has significant implications for home renovations, real estate disclosures, lead cleanups, and homeowner testing. This welcome step toward stronger protections for children was only possible thanks to Earthjustice and the petitioners that challenged EPA’s flawed rule.
  • Lowered federal elevated blood lead level: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Lead Exposure and Prevention Advisory Committee (LEPAC) unanimously recommended that the agency lower its blood lead reference level (aka “elevated blood lead level” or EBLL) from 5 micrograms per deciliter (µg/dL) of lead in young children’s blood to 3.5 µg/dL. CDC appears ready to act on the recommendation. When it does, the decision will have significant implications for state and local health and housing agencies reacting to blood lead testing results for at-risk children and for action levels for lead in food.
  • New national survey of lead-based paint hazards: The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) presented to LEPAC the preliminary results of its American Healthy Homes Survey II (AHHS-II), a long-overdue update to its 2006 survey. This survey of lead-based paint hazards serves as the basis for federal agencies to set priorities, assess impacts of policy decisions, and track progress. The results of samples taken in 2018-19 shows modest but significant progress across many demographics including African American households, government-supported households, and households in poverty – most likely an indication that the federal investment to fix low-income housing is paying off.

These actions put added urgency to President Biden’s America Jobs Plan that includes $45 billion in federal funding to fully replace the nation’s 9 million lead service lines and $213 billion for housing – both critical aspects of our nation’s infrastructure that need a lead poisoning prevention-oriented upgrade. We encourage Congress to provide at least $19 billion as part of an investment in housing to reduce lead-based paint hazards in pre-1940 housing, especially by replacing old, single-pane windows to get the combined benefits of safer and more energy efficient homes.

Read More »

Posted in Health policy, Lead, Regulation / Also tagged , , , | Read 1 Response

The damage done, Part 2: A post-mortem on the Trump EPA’s assault on TSCA’s new chemicals program

By / Published: April 9, 2021

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

Part 2 of a 2-part series (see Part 1 here)

Last week’s announcement by EPA about improvements it is making to EPA’s reviews of new chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) indicated it will begin by reversing two of the most damaging policy changes the Trump EPA made to the program:

Under the Trump EPA policies being reversed, at least 425 new chemicals were granted unfettered market access despite potential risks or insufficient information.

  • EPA will cease avoiding issuance of the binding orders TSCA requires to address potential risk or insufficient information:
    “EPA will stop issuing determinations of ‘not likely to present an unreasonable risk’ based on the existence of proposed SNURs [Significant New Use Rules]. Rather than excluding reasonably foreseen conditions of use from EPA’s review of a new substance by means of a SNUR, Congress anticipated that EPA would review all conditions of use when making determinations on new chemicals and, where appropriate, issue orders to address potential risks. Going forward, when EPA’s review leads to a conclusion that one or more uses may present an unreasonable risk, or when EPA lacks the information needed to make a safety finding, the agency will issue an order to address those potential risks.”
  • EPA will cease assuming workers are adequately protected from chemical exposures absent binding requirements on employers:
    “EPA now intends to ensure necessary protections for workers identified in its review of new chemicals through regulatory means. Where EPA identifies a potential unreasonable risk to workers that could be addressed with appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) and hazard communication, EPA will no longer assume that workers are adequately protected under OSHA’s worker protection standards and updated Safety Data Sheets (SDS). Instead, EPA will identify the absence of worker safeguards as “reasonably foreseen” conditions of use, and mandate necessary protections through a TSCA section 5(e) order, as appropriate.”

If you want the details on what was wrong with these policies – legally, scientifically, and health-wise – see EDF’s comments submitted to the agency last year and a summary of them here.

It’s no accident that these two policies were prioritized for reversal.  As I discuss below, each had massive adverse impact on the rigor and outcome of EPA’s reviews of new chemicals.  The result was that the Trump EPA allowed many hundreds of new chemicals to enter commerce under no or insufficient conditions.  It did this by:  1) illegally restricting its review to only the intended uses of a new chemical selected by its maker, hence failing to follow TSCA’s mandate to identify and assess reasonably foreseen uses of the chemicals; and 2) dismissing significant risks to workers that its own reviews identified, despite TSCA’s heightened mandate to protect workers.  Read More »

Posted in Health policy, TSCA reform, Worker safety / Also tagged , , | Authors: / Comments are closed

The damage done, Part 1: A post-mortem on the Trump EPA’s assault on TSCA’s new chemicals program

By / Published: April 8, 2021

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

Part 1 of a 2-part series (see Part 2 here)

With last week’s announcement by EPA that it intends to reverse two of the most damaging policy changes the Trump EPA made to EPA’s reviews of new chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), there is hope that going forward EPA’s reviews will once again conform to TSCA’s requirements and better protect workers, consumers, the public and the environment.

Predictably, the chemical industry and its phalanx of law firms – who demanded and embraced the Trump EPA’s policy reversals – have been howling loudly, doing their best impressions of Chicken Little.  They predict huge backlogs and economic calamity of all sorts, including an end to American innovation, and their lawyers are already threatening legal action – a clever way to drum up business, no doubt.

The fact is that EPA spends scarce resources reviewing hundreds of new chemicals every year that their manufacturers are not serious about – and often not in any hurry about – commercializing.  And industry then uses any delays in those reviews to argue that the review process is too rigorous and demand that it be scaled back.

But facts are stubborn things.

In this first post I’ll look at a few reasons why the industry’s new round of fear-mongering is not based in fact.  And in a second post I’ll look at the decisions on new chemicals made under the Trump EPA to shed more light on the real reason why industry is upset:  It just may have lost the inside track that yielded such high dividends in the form of flawed approvals of hundreds of new chemicals.  Or, as one prominent industry attorney bluntly said recently in a related context, “the good days are over, quite frankly.”  Read More »

Posted in Health policy, Industry influence, TSCA reform / Also tagged , | Authors: / Comments are closed

Re-visioning TSCA: Address the cumulative impacts of chemical exposures

By / Published: April 1, 2021

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

Part 4 of a 4-part series – see Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 here

This series of blog posts is looking ahead toward opportunities to advance a more robust and holistic vision for implementing the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) as reformed in 2016.

We discussed in the preceding installments of this series the importance of ensuring that combined exposures to a chemical from multiple sources and the greater exposures and susceptibilities of certain groups are accounted for.  But it is critical to also recognize that many other factors influence the impacts chemical exposures have on our health.  This final installment in our series will discuss how TSCA can and should take into account all of these factors – that is, account for cumulative impacts.

Read More »

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

Re-visioning TSCA: Better protect those at greater risk

By / Published: March 31, 2021

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

Part 3 of a 4-part series – see Part 1, Part 2, and Part 4 here

This series of blog posts is looking ahead toward opportunities to advance a more robust and holistic vision for implementing the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) as reformed in 2016.

In the preceding installment in this series, we discussed TSCA’s mandate for EPA to conduct comprehensive chemical evaluations.  The Trump EPA’s failure to do so especially detrimental to those groups at greater risk because they are more likely to face the precise exposures and susceptibilities that the Trump EPA excluded.  In this installment of our series, we will address how TSCA can and must be used to better protect those at greater risk from chemical exposures.

Read More »

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