EPA needs to look to states for reform

by Laurie Valeriano, Policy Director for the Washington Toxics Coalition.

It was a moment I had been waiting for, for over a decade as an environmental health advocate -- the day that the federal government would finally acknowledge there is something wrong when lead winds up in toys, baby bottles are made from toxic plastic, and harmful flame retardants get into breast milk.

And that day finally came in September when the head of the EPA, Lisa Jackson, admitted that there are serious problems with the federal toxics law that prevents her agency from being able to protect kids and their families from harmful chemicals in consumer products. Jackson said the Obama Administration supported changing the law governing toxic chemicals.

For years, the EPA and the chemical industry have said the system is working. But now even the chemical industry is singing a different tune and saying the law needs to be modernized. The challenge now lies in putting together a new approach that will keep harmful chemicals out of products and restore public confidence. For the right approach, EPA and Congress should look more closely at what states have done in recent years and not rely on the same old one-size fits all system to chemical regulation.

While the EPA’s announcement was hopeful, the problem is that the changes are modeled after an approach that will result in endless government studies and gridlock when what we really need is action.

For example, federal law should require the phase out of the worst chemicals first. We don’t need more studies on toxic flame retardants (PBDEs), which numerous states have banned or on bisphenol A, the hormone disrupting chemical that leaches from baby bottles banned by Minnesota and Connecticut. We need the federal law to be just as strong and to protect all kids and families in the US.

The EPA’s approach will require long drawn out risk assessment studies before action can be taken. And even after those studies are conducted BPA could possibly still be used in baby bottles and PBDEs in our couches—there is no guarantee that harmful chemicals will be taken off the market.

We want changes based on good science and reasonable approaches, but the way to do that is to start to take action with chemicals that are known problems, rather than enter a process where we are grinding away at a risk assessment.

States like Washington and Maine have moved away from a full-blown risk assessment approach because of cost and efficiency. Instead, our states have identified chemicals of high concern and are moving companies towards using safer chemicals.

There are 10,000 potential chemicals to be studied, and giving the same priority to them all is going to become a bureaucratic nightmare of a process. We need to change the law in a way that is going to make the government more responsive, and have a backstop safety standard for the ones that are not highest on the priority list.

When announcing the EPA principles, Administrator Jackson acknowledged the states for stepping in "to address these threats because they see inaction at the national level." Now she needs to listen much more closely to the approaches that the states are taking, so that we can move toward a safer community and a safer nation.