I have written before on attempts to reform the way we manage chemicals in the United States (Inorganic chemicals and Montebello, now called ChAMP), as well as in Europe (REACH). With a new Congress and a new President, and with many pressures from all sides, it is likely that there will be renewed efforts to pass a comprehensive reform of the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) in 2009. But it is not guaranteed.
One factor that may affect the likelihood of TSCA reform this year is the move by several House and Senate members to the new Administration. The House version of the Kid Safe Chemical Act bill (KSCA) (H.R.6100) was introduced in 2008 by Hilda Solis and Henry Waxman. Congresswoman Solis has been tapped by President Obama to be his Secretary of Labor. Her successor will be selected by special election in California's 32nd Congressional District. Because the special election takes up to 4 months to complete, and Solis' successor will be a freshman Congressperson, it is unclear whether they would be in a position to reintroduce the bill in the 111th Congress. Similarly, Congressman Waxman has taken over the chairmanship of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, previously long led for the Democrats by Michigan Congressman John Dingell. In his new position, Waxman seems intent on working with the many other California Democrats in leadership positions, as well as the Obama Administration, to give greater emphasis to energy and climate change related issues. Of course, the bill could be reintroduced by anyone in the House.
In the Senate, New Jersey's Frank Lautenberg (along with Waxman in the House) was the leader behind the original KSCA introduced first in 2005 and reintroduced it as S.3040 in 2008. As of the fall of 2008 the Senate Committee on Environment and Public works, on which Lautenberg serves and California Senator Boxer Chairs, were indicating that they planned to begin hearings on KSCA/TSCA reform this spring. Certainly there will be several issues competing for resources, but with REACH and the Canadian prioritization programs applying pressure, and the EPA focusing on enhancing the current ChAMP program, there will be incentive from all sides to find a workable alternative to the current TSCA program here in the states.
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Comments: 65
They put so much junk into waht we eat.
It is time to stop big companaies and big science from the terrors theyare bringing to us.
But I notice the word compromise above. I hope that the individualwill not rank second to profit.
As to "green" it is a fad that will run its course. There will be less and less emphasis on this concept and everything will be back to normal. If that is good or bad I don't know.
I remember the "Save the Whale' project, the Japanese pretty much flipped us the bird.
We've shut down lots of coal mines, only to have the Chinese increase production with NO CONTROLS on pollution or labor laws. What has the world gained?
Nora J
Many don't seem to get out of the false dichotomy, environment vs. economy. I hope Jody returns to see your comment. The economy we presently are "enjoying" is (in part) a result of environmental "unsustainability". "Unsustainability" means "unsustainability - whether environmental or economic. They go hand-in-hand.
Col. "I believe there are much more important things before our congres. This will of necessity take a back seat if they are tending to business properly."
More important? Perhaps, of course, if you haven't been adversely affected personally by misuse of chemicals - everyday chemicals we all unwittingly use in our homes. How would you know? Besides, what kind of people are we sending to D.C., if we think they can't walk and chew gum at the same time?
David (to Col.): "...we haven't charged our elected officials with making the tough decisions; we would rather they simply bring home the pork projects."
Yes. WE should keep a close watch on OUR OWN representatives and senators with regard to this issue. Thanks for bring up this important topic.
Reminds me of McCain saying, "The fundamentals of our economy are strong."
Charles: "As noted libertarian Dr. Walter E. Williams noted that the green movement is the new way to bring about communism or fascism...."
Charles, find another doctor. This one's not helping you much.
My own sense is that we have an opportunity here to actually get issues addressed. Resources will be an issue, especially since the Obama Administration will have to first fill in the hole they were left. But I believe there is a window.
I've heard the term, "body burden" to describe that.
Bottom line is we all have chemicals in our bodies. The debate is over whether the very low concentrations are something we should or should not worry about. And another debate is over whether we should do something even if there isn't anything to worry about (or more likely, we don't know if there is anything to worry about).
Charles: "We have more pressing concerns now, plus all this would do as add more red tape along with stunting economic growth and job creation."
Not even industries argue that they have a "right" to make money in ways that adversely affect individuals and communities. Industries have always taken the approach of denying that there is evidence of harm. But there is even a very large problem with that - and it is called "exernalizing" not only cost, but burden of proof, as well. That is, if there is no "evidence of harm", there is no public concern. That shifts the burden of proof to the public to show evidence of harm. Instead, however, the burden of proof should be on industry to demonstrate safety before products hit the market.
I don't know if the legislation David highlights here will shift that burden to industry. If not, I'd say it's inadequate.
It's not only a matter of using chemicals singly (which, I undertand, is how most of the research is done), but in combination. That may have change. I haven't looked at this issue in a while.
And that goes to the "burden of proof" issue, I referred to above. Should it be the public's burden to demonstrate harm (i.e., taxpayer), or should it be industry's burden to demonstrate safety - not only of chemicals used singly, but in combination with other chemicals. You know, like pharmaceutical companies are required to do.
Fortunately, there are options these days. For example:
Seventh Generation
Simple Green
Green Works
Steve - I would say that one of the proposals does shift most of the burden to industry, much like REACH does in Europe. But it also provides incentives for "green chemistry" and innovation. Another proposal is the codification of a program called ChAMP, which grew out of the voluntary HPV program but parts of it still keep much of the burden on EPA. Other parts shift the burden to industry. This is one of the areas that will have to be discussed if Congress goes ahead with a TSCA reform package (btw, TSCA as it has stood for 30 years puts almost the entire burden on EPA; the new ideas all shift at least some of the burden back to industry).
I can't speak for any of the products you mention specifically, Steve, but I can say from personal experience that "green" is not always green. In some cases the products are not effective at all, so people are using something less toxic but it doesn't do what it is supposed to do (like kill microbes), so they are actually putting themselves more at risk without actually helping the environment. [To reiterate, I am not talking about the products you list, just making a general observation]
The point is only that we need to be informed consumers, no matter what choices we make.
But, I do know that if Waxman, Solis, and Boxer are for proposed legislation, it will cost American consumers more and will cause the U.S. to lose additional jobs. American companies can't compete when burdened with the regulations that are their legislative trademark of these California liberals.
If the U.S. wants to stop jobs from moving overseas, the best thing we could do is to give California, including its Senators and Representatives, to Mexico so they could be a burden to the Mexican economy.
I think you may be jumping to conclusions just because you don't care for the parties you mention. The chemical industry is actually in favor of TSCA reform. They want Congress to come up with a workable program that isn't as burdensome to industry at REACH is in Europe. In fact, the big companies and the big chemical trade associations are eager to work with Waxman, Solis and Boxer (and Obama and Jackson) to devise a program that gets at the goals we all value, i.e., health, safety and strong business.
Furthermore, the chemical industry sees a smart reworking of TSCA as a means of enhancing their competitive position over other countries. They want standards to be high specifically to keep out the lower standard competition from overseas.
That's good news.
David: "I can't speak for any of the products you mention specifically...."
I can, because I've used them. They work - and although I can't say for sure if they kill microbes, I'm at least still here (and have experienced no microbe problems).
Here are some others:
Green Carpet
Green Paint
Green Furniture
And here is a good general reference source
The chief reason the big business is so eager to "work" with Waxman is the same reason EVERYONE acts happy when the Danes pop by for tribute. You get to know who exactly must be paid off ala the Danegeld. Business knows that people like Waxman are power mad regulatory drones but now that is where the power rests for at least 2 years, so you pay homage and maybe you don't raped so badly. Microsoft learned that the hard way in the 90s and few businesses have forgotten. Business needs some stability and idea of how savage the winds of regulation will be, going to and kowtowing before the Waxmans of Congress might get them that info.
The idea that the government doesn't care about business isn't supported by history or the facts. In fact, I would think you would be complaining that many industries have been charging you for the priviledge of them making a bigger profit all these years. Many of the costs that are being captured by industry now were costs that were externalized in the past, i.e., they just dumped that cost (and problems) on the taxpayer because it was downstream. So Waxman is just trying to put more money back in your pocket.
But another reason is because industry realizes it has been unfairly externalizing their responsibilities on the rest of society. And they understand that society wants businesses not to do that anymore. In fact, companies that are innovative actually can make more money because they reduce waste and even sell their waste as feedstock for someone elses product. The company makes a bigger profit, waste is reduced, and costs are not only not externalized, they are turned into income. Meanwhile we get cheaper and/or safer and/or more sustainable products. Companies get less regulatory burden because they show they are responsible. The environment gets cleaner. Health issues are reduced. Everyone wins.
And yes, I've painted an idealized scenario, but it's becoming more and more common. The biggest trade association for the chemical industry is strongly behind reforming the legislation, both to give them stability, and to give them a competitive advantage over companies who may be less innovative.
If we look at the enforcement end, how does the prosecution prove harm. If the businesses have the burden of proof, how can they possibly prove that no harm was done? The range and diversity of the chemicals is great and there are more chemicals being added at an increasing rate. The testing of these chemicals simply cannot keep up. We are all involuntary experimental subjects for environmental hazards. So even with the best will in the world and working as hard as they can for justice the enforcement of any laws about these chemicals is simply beyond human abilities.
But enforcement cannot be fair or objective and businesses have the power of money to bribe, influence, evade and postpone any serious enforcement. Our court system really was never intended to help control the behavior of corporations.
Therefore, we are faced with a situation which we cannot control by traditional means. We are poisoning ourselves (even the powers that be are being so poisoned) and cannot seem to find any way to stop ourselves. There's money to be made by this bizarre form of suicide. Every agricultural society has done these things to itself even when they learn about the damage they do. Out West, we cowboy types hate the sheep ranchers because the sheep destroy the range grass our cattle need. But those sheep herders can make money by destroying the public grazing land so they keep doing it.
We really have to change the whole business context to have any chance to solve this kind of problem. Laws against specific behavior simply cannot have any hope of doing the job. Government control will likewise fail.
That was about the addictive potential of nicotine. My career was in mental health, and one of my "specialties" was addiction treatment. So I recall those hearings quite well. The tobacco industry executives all stood, under oath, raised their right hands, and stated they believed their products were not addictive. At that very moment, as subsequent events revealed, the industry research was focusing on how to maximize the addictive potential of nicotine. Whatever happened to those guys?
"Free-marketeers", like Charles, seem to think that profits are the priority, regardless of the externalizations of cost and grief. It is a legitimate function of government to protect the populace from all threats - internal and external. Internal threats, at times, come from corporations.
Now, before Charles accuses me of being an anti-corporate socialist, I will just call attention to the fact that I have promoted, vigorously, Wal-Mart's "sustainability" effort, which can be reviewed here. And I have pointed out many corporate efforts to move toward environmental responsibility.
David: "Design for the Environment"
Thanks for the link. I have saved it for future reference.
The problem is that sometimes there a case in which we find out after the fact that a chemical was not safe, or was not being used safely. It of course gets widespread media coverage and the reaction from the public and regulators is that this rare case is the norm. In part that comes about because we can measure effects that we couldn't measure before and we can measure concentrations so low that we now see things that previously we wouldn't have seen.
Another issue is that while we may think it is rare to find an "unsafe" chemical, we don't know that for sure. There is inherent uncertainty - how can we know that it won't cause some unknown effects at some unknown time in the future? So what do we do?
In Europe the answer is REACH. While the stated goal of REACH is to "register" all chemicals (i.e., document their safety), the real function of REACH is to both identify very hazardous substances and change market conditions such that it becomes more cost-effective to find a less hazardous alternative. Even if the higher hazard chemical can be used perfectly safely (e.g., some strong acids are used only in completely closed containers where there is no exposure [unless of course the container ruptures]).
I do agree that it is a complicated problem.
"It's not only a matter of using chemicals singly (which, I undertand, is how most of the research is done), but in combination. That may have change. I haven't looked at this issue in a while."
This gets to one of the difficulties to which Larry alluded. We can't possibly test every combination of chemicals we might encounter. Not only are there over 100,000 chemicals, but the combinations would have to include mixtures of varying concentrations (e.g., one combo might be 25% of Chemical A, 25% of B, 50% of C and another 90% of A, 5% of B and 5% of C, which could have dramatically different synergistic, additive, or subtractive effects).
One school of thought is that we should strive for the least inherently hazardous chemicals we can. If a low hazard chemical can do the same job as a high hazard chemical, then get rid of the high hazard chemical completely. There are lots of problems with this approach. One is that the low hazard chemical may be completely unaffordable, often 10, 100, 1000 times the cost. There may not be a way to produce enough of it to replace the other product. It might not impart the same properties to the formulation as the original chemical. Furthermore, there is a tendency to think "lower hazard" is better than "higher hazard" but what if in the life cycle of the lower hazard chemical it actually degrades the planet even more than the higher hazard chemical?
Of course, there are people working to deal with these difficulties, and any changes to the chemical control system should reward innovation. The Kid Safe Chemical Act bill mentioned above tries to do this by including an incentive fund for green chemistry practices. Whether it is feasible given our current economic problems is something that I'm sure will get considerable debate if the bill is reintroduced in this Congress (which my contacts suggest that it will be).
If pollution is causing illness and death in humans and animals and long term and irreversible damage to the earth's systems, how can it be sustainable?
In the early 20th century in the U. S. child labor was outlawed the work week was shortened and worker pay was increased. Although it was predicted to do so by the conservatives of those days, Capitalism did not die.
Economic activity and productivity in the U. S. increased dramatically and became the world standard, the shining example if you will of Capitalism.
Why not continue this progressive standard instead of retreating from the reality of the damage current manufacturing and resource retreival produces.
As for sending manufacturing to China, Mexico, India, Indonesia etc. We know the air pollution drifts over the whole planet, the polluted rivers drain into the seas we all share.
Moving the "right" to pollute does not save us from the result or the cost of ending it.
Of course it has to be a continuous effort, what seemed clean yesterday now proves to be harmful.
Important article good disucssion.
Industry (I know whereof I speak here) is not against regulations. They want good and consistent regulations. No one wants to put our a produce that will kill people. Or their workers. This is not 1909. Industry reps will argue against regulations that are overly burdensome or do not actually do much good for the cost.
TSCA is an old and very successful law. Last year, I attended a workshop on the issue of reforming TSCA, and heard the woman who designed the law speak about it. It has been amazingly successful, although it is out of date.
Despite the media hysteria about body burden, we are actually NOT BEING POISONED by toxic chemicals. What has happened is that analytical techniques have gotten to the point of being able to measure femtgrams and sometimes attograms of a substance. (A femtogram is on trillionth of a gram, an attogram is thousand times less than that). In many cases (not all, mercury is an exception) the whole body burden issue is a non issue. First of all, as David has said, the levels are far below that needed to have any effect. And second of all there is nothing to be done about it. If you live in the world you will have a few molecules of everything out there in your blood stream. There is no conceivable way to avoid it. Unless you want to revert to the wonderful healthful pristine, happy days before industrialization. (That last sentence was satire, for those who do not read history).
There are some other reasons that I think REACH would not work in the US. The real challenge is to find a way to be able to test the huge inventory of new chemicals for safety, which TSCA does very slowly and laboriously. My own view is that we have learned so much about structure function relationships and chemical toxicology, that I would be surprised if a really bad actor made it through, even without EPA based testing.
Industry has a lot at stake here. The Chemical industry has no interest in poisoning anyone, and their recent record has been very good. Whatever law is ultimately passed, industry will be listened to, as will environmentalists, and lets hope, toxicologists. Like me.
The voluntary HPV program was a way to get data without changing TSCA. Then EPA started using the current provisions of TSCA more assertively (ironically enough), and now they are pushing ChAMP as the way to do a review of the old Inventory chemicals and prioritize those that need closer review. It actually is a decent way of going about it, though it is not possible without substantial increases in EPA resources. EPA also is suffering from a "brain drain" with many of the long timers retiring, including the guy who has been running the HPV/ChAMP/etc show for many years. So for it to work, some changes are needed.
But even there, I think it's still static thinking. One thing about the KSCA bill that might get some traction is the incentive for "green chemistry."