{"id":4716,"date":"2015-12-17T18:42:16","date_gmt":"2015-12-17T23:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/?p=4716"},"modified":"2024-02-12T11:01:46","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T16:01:46","slug":"lets-savor-this-moment-senate-passes-legislation-representing-real-chemical-safety-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2015\/12\/17\/lets-savor-this-moment-senate-passes-legislation-representing-real-chemical-safety-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s savor this moment: Senate passes legislation representing real chemical safety reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Denison, Ph.D.,\u00a0<\/em>is a Lead Senior Scientist.<\/em><\/p>\n

[Links to: the Senate-passed bill<\/a> and a staff-prepared summary and list of changes <\/a>made since committee markup.]<\/em><\/p>\n

A huge step was taken tonight toward bringing this country\u2019s chemical safety law into the 21st<\/sup> century:\u00a0 The Senate (at last!) brought the Lautenberg Act <\/a>to the floor by unanimous consent and passed it without objection by a voice vote.\u00a0 While this outcome was not surprising, given that 60 Senators had already co-sponsored the legislation, it took a long time to get here and tonight\u2019s vote is an historic moment that merits reflection.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been working for better chemical safety policies, including meaningful and comprehensive reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), for most of my career at EDF.\u00a0 And for much of that time I found myself and my organization virtually always at odds with the chemical industry and often with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).\u00a0 When I started, I\u2019m not sure I could ever have predicted either how long it would take \u2013 or how strongly bipartisan the support for TSCA reform would become.<\/p>\n

The twists and turns along the way toward today\u2019s Senate vote are too many to recount.\u00a0 Suffice it to say we wouldn\u2019t be here without the tremendous, sustained work of a group of Senators and their staff on both sides of the aisle who dedicated themselves to steadily moving this legislation forward while improving it in response to the concerns of literally hundreds of stakeholders.\u00a0 The key has been the active engagement of and by an ever-enlarging circle of Senators and stakeholders, who saw the potential for a public health and environmental breakthrough and had the courage to work toward a compromise bill even in the most partisan of climates.<\/p>\n

EDF\u2019s benchmark for judging the strength of any legislative proposal has been the extent to which it addresses the many flaws in current law.\u00a0 The Lautenberg Act, while clearly a compromise, still unequivocally meets that test \u2013 and has the level and diversity of support needed for the bill to actually become law.<\/p>\n

Our press release, <\/a>factsheets <\/a>and side-by-side comparison <\/a>of the Lautenberg Act to current TSCA summarize why we believe it represents the meaningful, comprehensive reform for which we\u2019ve been working for so long and that American families deserve.<\/p>\n

Of course, the work to get TSCA reform is not done.\u00a0 The task of reconciling the comprehensive Senate bill with the more skeletal TSCA Modernization Act that breezed through the House in the summer now begins.\u00a0 EDF strongly believes this should <\/em>not be an exercise in merely splitting the differences.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 Rather, we will be relentless in working to ensure that any bill signed into law meets key health protection objectives and delivers real reform.<\/p>\n

Our top-ten list of objectives is as follows:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Primary focus on chemicals that EPA, not industry, deems to be of highest priority<\/li>\n
  2. Affirmative safety finding before a new chemical can enter the market<\/li>\n
  3. No preemption of state authority triggered by EPA actions on new chemicals<\/li>\n
  4. Dedicated user fees to defray costs of all EPA chemical reviews, not just those industry selects<\/li>\n
  5. Full exclusion of cost considerations from all EPA determinations relating to unreasonable risk<\/li>\n
  6. Elimination of TSCA\u2019s Catch-22<\/em> requiring EPA to first show evidence of risk to require testing<\/li>\n
  7. Deadlines for compliance with, and elimination of a cost-benefit balancing requirement from, EPA chemical regulations<\/li>\n
  8. Authority for EPA to act if another agency to which a risk is referred fails to take timely action<\/li>\n
  9. EPA review of confidential business information (CBI) claims, both past and future, and mandatory access to CBI by states<\/li>\n
  10. No allowance for chemical identity in health and safety information to be claimed CBI<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    But it\u2019s worth savoring the present moment, brought to all of us by a rare amalgam of political risk-taking and courage, willingness to seek common ground and compromise, dedication to one\u2019s key principles while acknowledging the legitimacy of others\u2019, and countless days, weeks and months of plain old hard work.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Richard Denison, Ph.D.,\u00a0is a Lead Senior Scientist. [Links to: the Senate-passed bill and a staff-prepared summary and list of changes made since committee markup.] A huge step was taken tonight toward bringing this country\u2019s chemical safety law into the 21st century:\u00a0 The Senate (at last!) brought the Lautenberg Act to the floor by unanimous consent …<\/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":[56107],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-4716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-policy","category-tsca","tag-lautenberg-act"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t