{"id":9107,"date":"2019-09-20T09:40:50","date_gmt":"2019-09-20T14:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/?p=9107"},"modified":"2024-02-12T11:02:21","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T16:02:21","slug":"no-bergeson-campbell-the-publics-right-to-know-about-new-chemicals-is-not-a-distraction-or-waste-of-resources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2019\/09\/20\/no-bergeson-campbell-the-publics-right-to-know-about-new-chemicals-is-not-a-distraction-or-waste-of-resources\/","title":{"rendered":"No, Bergeson & Campbell, the public\u2019s right to know about new chemicals is not a distraction or waste of resources"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Earlier this month, EDF and other NGOs filed a notice of intent (NOI)<\/a> to sue the Environmental Protection Agency for violations of the Toxic Substances Control Act and its own regulations that deny the public timely access to information on chemicals companies seek to bring onto the market.<\/p>\n

Members of the public have a right to know about chemicals entering the market because they may well be exposed to them.\u00a0 And they have a right to know about and meaningfully participate in EPA\u2019s review of the safety of those chemicals because such transparency, accountability, and public participation are fundamental to good government, as well as being required by the law.<\/p>\n

This week the industry law firm Bergeson & Campbell (B&C) offered a commentary on the NOI, lamenting it as \u201chugely distracting and draw[ing] resources and [EPA] management\u2019s attention away from other priorities.\u201d\u00a0 Note that B&C represents many companies that submit new chemicals to EPA for review under TSCA and has been a central actor in the chemical industry\u2019s efforts to weaken those reviews.<\/p>\n

In its commentary, B&C acknowledges that the NOI has identified real legal violations committed by EPA, and that these violations result in the public having less information about the agency\u2019s new chemicals program.\u00a0 But B&C asserts that the violations don\u2019t really matter because they have been going on for a long time, not just under this administration.\u00a0 While that is true in some cases, the argument ignores the two elephants in the room.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

First, Congress passed major reforms to TSCA in 2016 because the old system wasn\u2019t working.\u00a0 Two of the most heavily amended sections of the law are section 5 (which governs reviews of new chemicals) and section 14 (which governs public access to information and confidential business information).\u00a0 The intent of these reforms was to substantially transform the landscape surrounding new chemical reviews and the public\u2019s ability to understand and engage in the process.\u00a0 Many of those reforms were made precisely to address the enormous problems under the old law that had led EPA\u2019s new chemicals program to be a black box where industry had a prominent seat at the table and the public was completely locked out.\u00a0 The reforms should have led to major improvements in both the rigor of EPA\u2019s reviews and the transparency of its decisions, correcting deficiencies seen in the past.<\/p>\n

Enter the second elephant:\u00a0 The implementation of TSCA by a new administration that has proven itself hostile to the public\u2019s right to know and willing to elevate private interests over public ones at every turn.\u00a0 B&C and other industry players have taken full advantage of their political opening:\u00a0 New chemical reviews under the new law have actually become even weaker than they were under the old law.\u00a0 But that comes at a considerable cost:\u00a0 There is simply no public trust remaining in EPA\u2019s new chemical reviews, a result that serves no one in the long run.<\/p>\n

With respect to the violations compiled in the NOI, EDF has been raising legal and policy concerns<\/a> about how this EPA has chosen to implement these provisions of the law for over two years \u2013 a topic this blog has dealt with in minute detail<\/a>. \u00a0While some modest efforts have been undertaken by EPA in recent months to address a few of them, EPA has also taken steps to reduce the amount of information available to the public<\/a> on its new chemical reviews.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the fundamental problems we raised remain virtually entirely unaddressed.<\/p>\n

The myriad legal, scientific and policy deficiencies in this EPA\u2019s new chemicals program<\/a> make it all the more important that EPA be compelled to provide the public with all the information on EPA\u2019s doings that the public is entitled to.<\/p>\n

As they say, the best disinfectant is sunshine.\u00a0 Hence the NOI.<\/p>\n

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

Richard Denison, Ph.D.,\u00a0is a Lead Senior Scientist. Earlier this month, EDF and other NGOs filed a notice of intent (NOI) to sue the Environmental Protection Agency for violations of the Toxic Substances Control Act and its own regulations that deny the public timely access to information on chemicals companies seek to bring onto the market. …<\/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":[44,56093,56096,114108],"tags":[68,56108],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-9107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-policy","category-industry-influence","category-omboira","category-tsca","tag-epa","tag-new-chemicals"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9107","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=9107"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12887,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9107\/revisions\/12887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9107"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}