It's not up to government to prove harm; it's up to industry to show that their products pose a reasonable certainty of no harm. EPA must systematically review whether industry has met this burden of proof for all industrial chemicals within 15 years of adoption. [Section 503]
3. Restrict the Use of Dangerous Chemicals Found in Newborn Babies
Hazardous chemicals detected in human umbilical cord blood would be immediately targeted for restrictions on their use. [Section 504]
4. Use New Scientific Evidence to Protect Health
EPA must consider and is authorized to require additional testing as new science and new testing methods emerge, including for health effects at low doses or during fetal or infant development and for nanomaterials. [Section 503]
Together, these features of the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act add up to a "precautionary approach," turning TSCA on its head. The Kid-Safe reform assumes that industrial chemicals may be harmful until chemical companies produce data showing their products pose a reasonable certainty of no harm.
Plus, the mere presence of industrial chemicals in cord blood triggers special action to eliminate those exposures, which are presumed to be undesirable in a newborn.
In a world where cancers, attention deficits, autism, asthma, and diabetes are increasing in children year after year, precaution for chemical exposures is clearly a rational approach.
Grassroots and Grasstops
To pass legislation in Washington, grass-roots campaigners from the hinterland need the insider known-how of the "grasstops" lobbying organizations in D.C. -- in this instance, NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council), EWG (the Environmental Working Group), and EDF (Environmental Defense Fund). For their part, the grasstops lobbyists in D.C. need grass-roots groups all across the country to pressure key legislators at crucial times in the legislative sausage-making process.
Sometimes the grasstops in D.C. forget that they can't win without support of a broad grass-roots base. There's no better example of this than the inside-the-beltway campaign in 2009 to pass "cap-and-trade" legislation to curb emissions of carbon dioxide. The grasstops groups, led by Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), imagined that they could play David to the fossil fuel industry's Goliath (oil, coal, natural gas, and electric utilities) without engaging grass-roots campaigners nationwide. Predictably, Goliath slew David handily.
Just as cap and trade was going down to embarrassing defeat, the grasstops took a different tack for TSCA reform -- they helped launch a large national grass-roots coalition now known as Safer Chemicals Healthy Families (SCHF), today comprising some 450 groups with perhaps 11 million total members. From the beginning, the coalition was partly staffed by grasstops: the coalition's web site lists its two "issue exerts" as Sarah Jensen, a physician with NRDC, and Richard Denison, a scientist employed by EDF. Indeed, the press release announcing the formation of the coalition August 4, 2009 listed Richard Denison of EDF as the first of two spokespeople for the coalition.
Thus, it all seemed to be working the way it was supposed to. Except that Congress was not cooperating. The petrochemical industry has a phenomenally deep pocket, and it was not about to roll over for a few green lobbyists, even if they had the backing of 11 million supporters in places like Boise and Little Rock. According to Common Cause, between 2005 and 2012 the chemical industry spent $375 million lobbying to prevent meaningful TSCA reform. That's more than $700,000 for each of the 535 members of Congress.
As time passed, Senator Lautenberg continually watered down his Kid-Safe proposal, each new version weaker than the last. In April of this year Lautenberg and Kristin Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) once again re-introduced a "Safe Chemicals Act." By now, the precautionary approach was long gone, as was the goal of protecting vulnerable populations like babies.
Senator Lautenberg evidently knew that even this compromised bill wasn't going anywhere because one month later -- May 22, 12 days before he died -- he introduced an even more industry-friendly version, "The Chemical Safety Improvement Act" or CSIA. This time his co-sponsor was Sen. David Vitter, conservative Republican from Louisiana and loyal servant of the petrochemical industry.
To say that Lautenberg-Vitter is industry-friendly understates the case. The chemical industry is salivating over the CSIA.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
