{"id":191,"date":"2009-11-12T11:55:34","date_gmt":"2009-11-12T15:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/nanotechnology\/?p=191"},"modified":"2024-02-12T11:00:48","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T16:00:48","slug":"americans-to-congress-give-epa-the-power-to-take-immediate-action-on-the-most-dangerous-chemicals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2009\/11\/12\/americans-to-congress-give-epa-the-power-to-take-immediate-action-on-the-most-dangerous-chemicals\/","title":{"rendered":"Americans to Congress: Give EPA the power to take immediate action on the most dangerous chemicals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The <strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.saferchemicals.org\/\">Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families<\/a><\/em><\/strong> campaign today released the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.saferchemicals.org\/2009\/11\/poll-finds-americans-very-concerned-about-exposure-to-toxic-chemicals.html\">results of a nationwide poll<\/a> conducted in August by renowned pollster Celinda Lake of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lakeresearch.com\/\">Lake Research Partners<\/a>.\u00a0 The most striking finding:\u00a0 Majorities of Republicans and Independents as well as Democrats strongly support adoption of new legislation that would give EPA the power to immediately restrict the use of dangerous chemicals.<\/p>\n<p>It seems that all that&#8217;s left is for Congress to act \u2026\u00a0<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The poll reached a demographically and geographically representative group of 1,000 registered voters across the country.\u00a0 It found that voters across political affiliations are seriously concerned about the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edf.org\/page.cfm?tagID=90\">limitations of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)<\/a>, including that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>TSCA did not require testing and a demonstration of safety of the tens of thousands of chemicals in commerce in 1976 (87% of voters are concerned);<\/li>\n<li>EPA is unable to take dangerous chemicals off the market, even ones as dangerous as asbestos (80% concerned); and<\/li>\n<li>TSCA has allowed EPA to require testing for only a small fraction of chemicals on the market (84% concerned).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When various proposals for TSCA reform were described, large majorities of voters expressed strong support:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;If a chemical is detected in babies at birth or in infants, it will be taken off the market&#8221;\n<ul>\n<li>84% of voters support<\/li>\n<li>60% strongly support:\n<ul>\n<li>66% of Democrats<\/li>\n<li>52% of Independents<\/li>\n<li>59% of Republicans<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Exposure to other toxic chemicals, such as formaldehyde, that have been extensively studied, will be reduced to the maximum extent possible&#8221;\n<ul>\n<li>85% of voters support<\/li>\n<li>59% strongly support:\n<ul>\n<li>69% of Democrats<\/li>\n<li>51% of Independents<\/li>\n<li>57% of Republicans<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Voters also express strong support for a systematic overhaul of TSCA that requires the safety of all chemicals to be demonstrated:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;A process will be created so that all chemicals in use must be tested and shown to be safe over the next 15 years&#8221;\n<ul>\n<li>81% of voters support<\/li>\n<li>57% strongly support (breakdown\u00a0 by political affiliation not available to me)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It seems that all that&#8217;s left is for Congress to act!\u00a0 Click here to help make sure they get the message:\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/secure2.edf.org\/site\/Advocacy?cmd=display&amp;page=UserAction&amp;id=1640\">EDF Action Alert: Help Strengthen America&#8217;s Toxic Chemicals Standards<\/a><\/p>\n<p>And to learn more about this issue, visit our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edf.org\/page.cfm?tagID=90\">website<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edf.org\/chemandnano\">blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist. The Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families campaign today released the results of a nationwide poll conducted in August by renowned pollster Celinda Lake of Lake Research Partners.\u00a0 The most striking finding:\u00a0 Majorities of Republicans and Independents as well as Democrats strongly support adoption of new legislation that would give &#8230;<\/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":[44,114108],"tags":[39210,39164,5020],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-policy","category-tsca","tag-bipartisan","tag-formaldehyde","tag-safer-chemicals-healthy-families"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191","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=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12546,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions\/12546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}