Chemical industry supports reform of toxics law

Today the American Chemistry Council, the trade association for chemical companies, released their “10 Principles” for reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act, the 33 year-old law that is the focus of our campaign. We released our principles as well.

The ACC’s conversion to the cause of reform is quite recent. For many years they argued that the law that couldn’t even regulate asbestos was working just fine. We have to suspect that the reason for the conversion is strategic. Having recently lost several state battles over chemical issues, and even lost on the issue of phthalates in toys in Congress last year, the industry sees the handwriting on the wall. They want to avoid being the “bad guy” in the press or Congress thereby securing a seat at the table and giving them more leverage to shape any reforms that emerge.

Whatever the reason, the change is still welcome. The principles they revealed today are more substantive than we would have expected and overlap with some of our own: making chemical hazard and use information publicly available, for example. Providing the EPA with better authority. Prioritizing chemicals for review. Allowing existing information to be used where appropriate to reduce the need for new laboratory tests. All to the good.

Yet you will also see important differences. In the 33 years while TSCA hasn’t been working, there has been a pile of information developed for many chemicals that have been assessed to death, shown to be harmful, but without any legal consequences.

A good example would be the formaldehyde that leached from the trailers provided to Hurricane Katrina victims. Or BPA, the synthetic estrogen that found its way into baby bottles and canned foods in spite of science showing toxicity at extremely low doses.  Any reform package should immediately restrict those kinds of chemicals rather than “reassessing” them, perhaps for years.

Similarly, while the ACC acknowledges that “persistence” and “bioaccumulation” are important factors in reviewing a chemical, we believe those two properties should be “deal-breakers” when combined with evidence of toxicity. Persistence means that a chemical doesn’t break down in the environment. Bioacculumation means that it builds up in the food chain. The two properties virtually guarantee public health and environmental problems.

The PCB’s that inspired the original TSCA –and were the only chemical explicitly banned by it in 1976 - are still showing up in fish and requiring expensive clean-up of the Hudson River a generation later. When chemicals are shown to have these properties they should be shown the door unless they’re needed to serve some critical purpose for a limited period of time.

Also, taken together, the ACC’s principles imply that they want EPA to prioritize chemicals based on available information and then largely restrict any public health interventions to those chemicals. The problem is that we don’t have good information for the vast majority of chemicals. We need that information and a real reform would require it to be developed. Otherwise, EPA’s effort will amount to the old cliché about  “looking for your keys where the light is shining.” We have to do better.

Finally, the ACC is a little general in areas where they could be specific. They say they want the law to reflect the best science. We’re saying that they law should incorporate the recommendations from the December 2008 reports of the National Academy of Sciences. The Academy called for major changes in the way the federal government does scientific risk assessments of chemicals. The ACC has surely seen these reports.

Similarly they endorse a health-based standard for chemicals. The leading reform proposal in the last two Congressional sessions, the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act, proposed a specific children’s health standard that has an established legal meaning and would therefore be enforceable. Why won’t the ACC just endorse it? What other standard would they propose?

So in general the ACC event today is good news, but advocates for safer chemicals and healthy families should keep their guard up and stay engaged. The details of the reform will determine whether it meets the goals of protecting public health and restoring the perception of safety and quality to American products.

Andy Igrejas the Director of the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families Campaign