{"id":6377,"date":"2017-04-10T12:35:53","date_gmt":"2017-04-10T17:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/?p=6377"},"modified":"2024-02-12T11:01:56","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T16:01:56","slug":"where-theres-smoke-there-are-mirrors-the-trump-administrations-claim-to-preserve-tsca-implementation-under-its-proposed-epa-budget-is-pure-illusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2017\/04\/10\/where-theres-smoke-there-are-mirrors-the-trump-administrations-claim-to-preserve-tsca-implementation-under-its-proposed-epa-budget-is-pure-illusion\/","title":{"rendered":"Where there\u2019s smoke, there are mirrors: The Trump Administration\u2019s claim to preserve TSCA implementation under its proposed EPA budget is pure illusion"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

As more details emerge about the Trump Administration\u2019s proposed budget cuts, it\u2019s becoming clearer that the public\u2019s health could well take one of the worst hits<\/a>.\u00a0 Trump has proposed a 31% cut to the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), paired with similarly deep reductions in staff.\u00a0 The details are laid out in a March 21, 2017, internal memo from EPA\u2019s Acting Chief Financial Officer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Among the biggest cuts are to the Agency\u2019s research, both research it conducts and that undertaken by labs and universities it helps fund.\u00a0 EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD) would see its funding cut nearly in half, from $483 million to $250 million in 2018. The axe would fall across the full spectrum of EPA\u2019s research:\u00a0 air, climate, and energy; human health risk assessment; safe and sustainable water; sustainable communities; homeland security; and chemical safety. \u00a0EPA\u2019s extramural STAR grant program would be entirely eliminated.<\/p>\n

Scroll through Attachment A of the memo and you\u2019ll see program after program proposed to be eliminated or slashed.\u00a0 But there is a notable exception, on p. 9 of the Attachment:\u00a0 an apparent increase for an item labeled \u201cOCSPP \/ EPM \/ Toxic Substances: Chemical Risk Review and Reduction,\u201d accompanied by this explanation:\u00a0 \u201cThis program change increases $13,834K in non-pay resources in support of the new work required under the updated TSCA law.\u201d<\/p>\n

On one level, this seems like a bright spot in an otherwise dismal document, though it appears that the increase is in anticipation of the fees that the new TSCA authorizes EPA to collect from industry to help offset up to 25% of program costs.\u00a0 Still, unlike most of the rest of the Agency, the program\u2019s base budget is proposed to remain essentially intact.<\/p>\n

No doubt this reflects the strong bipartisan support that led to last year\u2019s passage of the Lautenberg Act and the continuing need for the chemical industry to be able to point to a viable federal chemical safety program in order to restore public and market confidence and seek to temper state and market action to restrict dangerous chemicals.\u00a0 (I\u2019ve recently blogged, however, about the mixed signals being sent by the industry; see here<\/a> and here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

While this may seem like good news, the notion that EPA could somehow neatly carve out one program area and keep it functioning well when the carving knives are rampantly slashing everything around it is, well, preposterous. \u00a0<\/p>\n

A functioning TSCA office at EPA is highly dependent on many other functions within the Agency.\u00a0 I\u2019ll just name two here for starters, both of which are housed within ORD and are proposed for near or total elimination under Mr. Trump\u2019s proposed budget:<\/p>\n