{"id":1206,"date":"2011-03-10T09:41:29","date_gmt":"2011-03-10T14:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/nanotechnology\/?p=1206"},"modified":"2026-04-02T12:30:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T17:30:22","slug":"memo-to-acc-et-al-whats-said-in-maryland-doesnt-stay-in-maryland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2011\/03\/10\/memo-to-acc-et-al-whats-said-in-maryland-doesnt-stay-in-maryland\/","title":{"rendered":"Memo to ACC et al.: What\u2019s said in Maryland doesn\u2019t stay in Maryland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Denison, Ph.D.<\/em>, is a Senior Scientist.<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s only a little more than 30 miles from Washington, DC to Annapolis, the Capitol of the State of Maryland.\u00a0 But to judge from testimony given there on February 24 and March 1 by representatives of the chemical, formulated products and food industries, you\u2019d think Annapolis existed in a parallel universe, with only a passing resemblance to the one in DC.<\/p>\n

The occasions were hearings on companion bills introduced into the Maryland State Senate, SB 637<\/a>, and the State House of Delegates, HB 759<\/a>, titled the \u201cHealthy Kids, Healthy Maryland – Toxic Chemical Identification and Reduction<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Actually, the industry associations\u2019 testimonies suggest either of two alternative universes.\u00a0 In one of them, Maryland should do nothing to address dangerous chemical exposures because the federal Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and other related laws are working quite well, thank you very much.\u00a0 Residing in this parallel universe are the American Chemistry Council<\/a> (ACC), the American Cleaning Institute<\/a> (ACI, until recently the more accurately named Soap and Detergent Association), the Maryland Industrial Technology Alliance<\/a> and the Consumer Specialty Products Association<\/a> (CSPA).<\/p>\n

In the other parallel universe, Maryland should do nothing to address dangerous chemical exposures because it will only get in the way of TSCA reform, which is just around the corner.\u00a0 Inhabiting this alternative universe are the Grocery Manufacturers Association<\/a> (GMA), the\u00a0Can Manufacturers Institute<\/a>, and yes \u2013 as another indication that it just can\u2019t quite make up its mind about TSCA reform \u2013 once again, the American Chemistry Council.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The bills in question move away from the single-chemical focus bills that have so enraged the industry over the last decade.\u00a0 If adopted, they would make Maryland the fifth state \u2013 after Maine, Washington, California and Minnesota \u2013 to adopt laws aimed at establishing a broader chemicals policy that more systematically reviews and prioritizes chemicals and acts to control those of greatest concern, for example, when used in products to which children may be exposed.<\/p>\n

The bills not only have the broader focus called for by industry, but they assign experts at state health and environmental agencies, rather than legislators, the tasks of selecting and deciding on appropriate actions to be taken on chemicals, and include concepts such as prioritization and children\u2019s health protection that the industry says it supports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All this for naught, to judge by the industry testimony.\u00a0 Industry\u2019s characterization of the bills is that they are scary big<\/em>.\u00a0 Here are just some of the industry\u2019s many downer descriptors of the impending disaster to be wreaked by these bills:\u00a0 Costly, burdensome, duplicative, complex, expensive, arbitrary, based on flawed science, too taxing of limited state resources, \u201cextremely costly for the entire nation,\u201d \u201cwill cause massive supply chain issues,\u201d \u201cwill surely collapse under its own weight,\u201d could \u201csignificantly reduce the availability of food and beverage products in Maryland,\u201d and, of course \u2026 wait for it \u2026 will \u201cput workers out of jobs in the state of Maryland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oddly, some of these same groups simultaneously take Maryland legislators to task for thinking too small<\/em>. \u00a0\u00a0ACC scolds that the bills will only result in a \u201cpiecemeal review of a few chemicals a year\u201d (does it really seek a bill that would set a faster pace?).\u00a0 And ACI chides Maryland\u2019s effort because it does not \u201capply to the whole of commerce\u201d!<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s the best fun about the industry testimonies is the alternative version of reality they sought to present to Maryland elected officials.\u00a0 ACC wants them to know TSCA \u201cimposes significant reporting, testing and regulatory requirements on the manufacture, import, processing use and disposal of chemicals.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0Wow, really?\u00a0 Need I say it again \u2013 fewer than 300 chemicals required to be tested, only limited uses of five chemical regulated, in 35 years of life under TSCA?<\/p>\n

And ACC asserts that TSCA\u2019s \u201cstatutory and regulatory foundation \u2026 is sound.\u201d\u00a0 That sounds uncannily like ACC\u2019s rhetoric before its pro-reform conversion in late 2009<\/a> , when it testified before Congress that \u201cTSCA is a sound statutory and regulatory system.\u201d\u00a0 But in fairness, at least ACC now goes on to say it supports updating TSCA to \u201cmeet the technological and safety requirements of today.\u201d<\/p>\n

CSPA indicates there\u2019s no need for Maryland to act because its industry already \u201cis extensively regulated by several statutes,\u201d and expresses concern that the Maryland bills \u201cwould duplicate activities already being performed by a number of federal agencies,\u201d including EPA.<\/p>\n

The Maryland Industrial Technology Alliance calls the Maryland action \u201cunnecessary\u201d because \u201cfor the last 35 years the Toxic Substances Control Act and other federal laws have protected consumers and children in the marketplace [sic<\/em>]\u201d \u2013 not sure which children in the marketplace MITA has in mind!<\/p>\n

ACI calls any action by Maryland \u201ccounterproductive in light of other ongoing and successful chemical management work.\u201d<\/p>\n

These claims of success would be easier to swallow but for the fact that TSCA is widely acknowledged by essentially everyone but industry to have utterly failed to ensure Americans are protected from toxic chemical exposures.<\/p>\n

Finally, both ACC and the Grocery Manufacturers Association are concerned that Maryland is interfering with the nation\u2019s business and impeding TSCA reform.\u00a0 ACC asks that \u201cthe State should allow Congress to continue its reform\u201d of TSCA \u2013 and \u201callow the United States Environmental Protection Agency to continue working on implementing TSCA.\u00a0 And GMA believes Maryland acting \u201cwould be a mistake and would, in fact, set back the national effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

These concerns would be a bit easier to swallow but for the fact that the same industry groups were instrumental in ensuring TSCA reform did not advance in the last Congress<\/a>, and have opposed at every turn EPA\u2019s modest actions under its current authority<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of course, perhaps more than any other factor it is action by the states over the past decade to fill the void at the federal level<\/a> that has driven the industry to shift its long-standing opposition to TSCA reform to what appears more and more to be a grudging acceptance of the need for \u201cmodernization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back here inside the DC beltway, what the industry has been saying in Maryland only serves to raise the same questions I and many others have been asking for the past year:\u00a0 What does the industry actually want, and when do they want it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist. It\u2019s only a little more than 30 miles from Washington, DC to Annapolis, the Capitol of the State of Maryland.\u00a0 But to judge from testimony given there on February 24 and March 1 by representatives of the chemical, formulated products and food industries, you\u2019d think Annapolis existed in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,56096,114108],"tags":[39150,5013,39200,39193,134],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-policy","category-omboira","category-tsca","tag-american-chemistry-council","tag-children-safety","tag-consumer-specialty-products-association-cspa","tag-prioritization","tag-states"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1206"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13683,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206\/revisions\/13683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1206"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}