chemical policy

Happy Birthday, TSCA!

With the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) celebrating its 37th birthday today, I was thinking what we should get it as a birthday gift.  Here’s one idea; how about a little respect.  I’ve blogged before about how the statute has become one of the most denigrated environmental laws on the books.  It seems that every …

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New Chemical Regulations Go Live in California

Making Prevention Real?

Today, after years of discussions and drafts, California’s new Safer Consumer Product regulations take effect.  They create a comprehensive chemicals regulatory scheme having three steps: identification and prioritization of consumer products containing chemicals of greatest concern (“product-chemical combinations”); performance of “alternative analyses” by the manufacturers of those high priority product-chemical combinations; and selection of regulatory responses …

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Bottles and cans, bisphenol-A, and chemical regulation

The online magazine Yale Environment 360 has published an informative and rather frightening interview with Frederick vom Saal, a biologist at the University of Missouri’s Endocrine Disruptors Group, about bisphenol-A and what he sees as a completely broken regulatory system for managing hazards from chemicals.  Elizabeth Kolbert, known recently for her stellar journalism in the New …

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And They’re Off…California Proposes New Chemical Regulations

California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control just released its proposed “green chemistry” regulations.  The regulations implement Assembly Bill 1879, which is a potential game-changer in how chemicals are regulated.  Eschewing the conventional risk management approach embedded in existing federal and state statutes, the regulations require affected manufacturers to engage in an alternatives analysis of consumer …

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Reforming the Reforms: Building Safe Alternatives into Safety Standards

Chemical policy reform is heating up at the federal level. Senator Lautenberg has introduced a comprehensive reform bill in the Senate, and Congressmen Rush and Waxman are circulating a discussion draft bill in the House.  In their current form, both the Lautenberg bill and the Rush/Waxman discussion draft rely upon risk-based safety standards to protect against toxic …

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A New Call for Caution About Chemicals

An advance description of a forthcoming report by the President’s Cancer Panel: It [the report] calls on America to rethink the way we confront cancer, including much more rigorous regulation of chemicals. Traditionally, we reduce cancer risks through regular doctor visits, self-examinations and screenings such as mammograms. The President’s Cancer Panel suggests other eye-opening steps …

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Jackson Comes Out Swinging on TSCA, But Pulls Some Critical Punches

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson delivered a one-two combination in chemical policy on Tuesday, announcing principles for legislative reform of TSCA while directing the agency to publicize administrative “enhancements” to the existing program.  At a speech in San Francisco, the Administrator presented the Obama Administration’s “Essential Principles for Reform of Chemicals Management Legislation,” a set of …

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Bisphenol-A in baby bottles . . . and in Sigg bottles (!)

The chemical bisphenol-A (BPA), commonly found in polycarbonate plastics and other household containers, is the subject of a new bill in California because of its potential adverse health effects.  BPA hasbeen linked through animal testing to serious health problemsinvolving behavior, brain development, reproduction and heart function. Environmental advocacy groups such as the Environmental Working Group, …

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Chemical Policy and Homeland Security Redux

The Bureau of National Affairs reported recently that the House Homeland Security Committee is considering draft legislation that would require major chemical facilities to evaluate the use of inherently safer design to reduce chemical security risks.  Generally speaking, inherently safer design attempts to reduce risks associated with the storage and use of hazardous chemicals by …

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Getting Serious About Toxicity Testing

Most of the products we use everyday contain chemicals that have never undergone meaningful health and safety testing.  That statement is hardly controversial; most folks on all sides of the continuing debate over chemical policy reform accept it as accurate.  Yet there is controversy over whether such testing should be required as a routine matter …

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