{"id":8570,"date":"2019-03-12T14:44:42","date_gmt":"2019-03-12T19:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/?p=8570"},"modified":"2024-02-12T11:02:16","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T16:02:16","slug":"edf-statement-in-advance-of-house-hearing-on-failure-by-the-trump-epa-to-protect-workers-from-toxic-chemicals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2019\/03\/12\/edf-statement-in-advance-of-house-hearing-on-failure-by-the-trump-epa-to-protect-workers-from-toxic-chemicals\/","title":{"rendered":"EDF statement in advance of House hearing on failure by the Trump EPA to protect workers from toxic chemicals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Richard Denison, Ph.D.,\u00a0<\/em>is a Lead Senior Scientist.<\/p>\n<p>Tomorrow, the House Energy and Commerce Committee\u2019s Subcommittee on the Environment and Climate Change will hold an oversight hearing on \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/energycommerce.house.gov\/committee-activity\/hearings\/hearing-on-mismanaging-chemical-risks-epa-s-failure-to-protect-workers\">Mismanaging Chemical Risks: EPA\u2019s Failure to Protect Workers<\/a>.\u201d In advance of the hearing, Environmental Defense Fund lead senior scientist, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edf.org\/people\/richard-denison\">Dr. Richard Denison<\/a>, made the following statement:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnder the Trump Administration, every aspect of EPA\u2019s implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) &#8212; our recently reformed chemical safety law &#8212; has gone off the rails. The Trump EPA has abdicated its authority and responsibility under the law to address risks to workers. Among the ways EPA has shirked these duties are the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2019\/02\/21\/the-trump-epa-is-throwing-workers-facing-risks-from-new-tsca-chemicals-under-the-bus\/\"><strong>Clearing new chemicals<\/strong><\/a><strong> despite risks to workers. <\/strong>EPA has approved new chemicals for unfettered market access even where the agency has identified significant risks to workers or has indicated it has insufficient information to determine risks to workers. EPA has done so for many dozens of chemicals.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.edf.org\/media\/trump-epas-final-methylene-chloride-ban-fails-protect-workers?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_campaign=edf-health_tsca_upd_hlth&amp;utm_medium=social-media&amp;utm_id=1546964205\"><strong>Abandoning worker protections<\/strong><\/a><strong> from methylene chloride<\/strong>. EPA is poised to finalize a ban of methylene chloride-based paint strippers far narrower than the one it proposed over two years ago. While consumer uses will be banned, EPA will not limit commercial uses, leaving workers, who are most at risk from these products, unprotected.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2019\/01\/15\/the-trump-epas-first-tsca-risk-evaluation-is-an-epic-fail\/\"><strong>Ignoring worker safety<\/strong><\/a><strong> in chemical risk evaluations under TSCA<\/strong>. In the only draft risk evaluation of a chemical issued to date, EPA relied exclusively on a single undocumented workplace air concentration value, provided through a private personal communication by a conflicted industry source, as the basis to conclude that workers across the supply chain for this chemical face no significant exposure to the chemical.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cOversight of this EPA\u2019s reckless approach to worker protection under existing law is long overdue.\u00a0 We applaud the subcommittee for holding this hearing. This EPA is putting the public\u2019s health \u2013 especially worker\u2019s health &#8212; at risk by systematically weakening and undermining chemical safety: the agency must be held accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Denison, Ph.D.,\u00a0is a Lead Senior Scientist. Tomorrow, the House Energy and Commerce Committee\u2019s Subcommittee on the Environment and Climate Change will hold an oversight hearing on \u201cMismanaging Chemical Risks: EPA\u2019s Failure to Protect Workers.\u201d In advance of the hearing, Environmental Defense Fund lead senior scientist, Dr. Richard Denison, made the following statement: \u201cUnder the &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":8572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,44,56096],"tags":[68,56107,91777,107219,5022],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-8570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-epa","category-policy","category-omboira","tag-epa","tag-lautenberg-act","tag-methylene-chloride","tag-pigment-violet-29-pv29","tag-worker-safety"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8570","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=8570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12866,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8570\/revisions\/12866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8570"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}