Statement of Ranking Minority Member James Inhofe - Senate Hearing on TSCA Chemical Control Reform

I have been posting the statements of key participants in the recent Senate EPW Committee hearings on TSCA chemical control reform. Previously I posted the Chairwoman's opening statement and the statement of the EPA Administrator. Today is the opening statement of Ranking Minority member James Inhofe.

Opening Statement
Senator James M. Inhofe, Ranking Member
Committee on Environment and Public Works
Full Committee and Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health joint hearing entitled, “Oversight Hearing on the Federal Toxic Substances Control Act.”
Wednesday, December 2, 2009 2:30 p.m.

Thank you, Chairman Boxer and Chairman Lautenberg, for holding this oversight hearing on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

For over 30 years, TSCA has provided a scientifically sound, risk-based framework for reporting, testing, tracking, and restricting chemical substances and mixtures. This is the first of several hearings to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the law, and I welcome this debate.

We will hear testimony today from federal witnesses covering how TSCA could be improved, the areas where EPA could do better, and how the science and scope of chemical review has evolved over the years. However, in addition, I encourage you to discuss ways in which TSCA currently succeeds in protecting human health and the environment.

Senator Lautenberg has, in previous years, introduced several versions of the “Kids Safe Chemicals Act.” The legislation would eliminate the current risk-based review system under TSCA and force EPA to use the precautionary principle – a regulatory principle that I adamantly oppose. Senator Lautenberg has indicated that he will again introduce legislation to amend TSCA. In the interest of moving balanced, effective TSCA reform legislation, I urge you, Senator, to introduce a bill driven by risk-based analysis rather than the precautionary principle.

EPA, NGOs, and industry have recently issued statements supporting changes to TSCA, along with their principles on how the law should be amended. Some of these principles seem reasonable to me, while others do not. Some of the ideas do not require new legislative authority and could be accomplished under TSCA by regulatory changes. For the record, I believe that any changes to TSCA - statutory or regulatory - must adhere to the following fundamental principles:

- Reviews must use data and methods based on the best available science and risk-based assessment.

- Reviews must include cost-benefit considerations for the private-sector and consumers.

- Processes must protect proprietary business information, as well as information that should be protected for security reasons.

- Procedures should prioritize reviews for existing chemicals.

- Processes must not include any provision that encourages litigation or citizen suits.

- Reviews must not include any provisions that compel product substitution by commercial interests or consumers.

Following these principles, I believe we can protect public health and the environment while safeguarding jobs and the economy. [emphasis in original] With that, I look forward to hearing from the federal representatives here today on this important topic.

Before I close, I want to follow up on a letter I sent you yesterday, Madame Chairman, requesting hearings on what is now colloquially referred to as ‘ClimateGate’. Whatever one’s position on the science of global warming—and, Madame Chairman, I think you know mine—one cannot deny that the emails raise fundamental questions concerning, among other things, transparency and openness in science, especially taxpayer-funded science.

What do I mean? Well, in addition to apparent attempts to manipulate data and vilify scientists with opposing viewpoints, there is evidence that some of the world’s preeminent scientists, who receive or have received taxpayer-funded grants, evaded laws requiring information disclosure, including the Freedom of Information Act.

Not only is this a potential violation of law, but it violates a fundamental principle of the scientific method: that is, put everything on the table and allow anyone so inclined to attack it. If research sustains the attack, then the researcher, the scientific community, and the taxpayer can rightly have confidence that the conclusions are sound. If not, then it’s back to the drawing board.

Madame Chairman, as I stated in my letter, for the taxpayer’s sake, let’s look at this controversy, from top to bottom. It has already forced Phil Jones, the head of the UK’s Climatic Research Unit to step aside temporarily. So please join me in calling on the Obama Administration and the IPCC not only to investigate this matter, but to release all of the data in question, to ensure that taxpayer-funded research is conducted according to the highest legal, ethical, and professional standards.

TSCA Chemical Control Reform May Gain Priority if Climate Bill Momentum Fades

As I have been reporting here, both the House and the Senate have been holding hearings related to the potential reform (or "modernization") of the 33 year old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). But activities on introducing a bill have been queued up behind other large legislative efforts like health care and the climate change (cap-and-trade) bill. However, the fact that the climate change bill has lost some momentum may open up a window for chemical control.

Given that next year will be dominated by positioning for a critical mid-term election, it is quite possible that Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s pending legislation to overhaul TSCA - which he said he would introduce in the “coming weeks” (though he has been saying that same thing since this past February) - may actually get a chance to be introduced. Lautenberg had introduced a Kid Safe Chemical Act originally in 2005, then again in 2008, with the bills dying in committee with no action on both occasions. The new version of "Kid Safe" is expected to incorporate ideas offered in several meetings held in 2009 between House and Senate staff and both industy and environmental groups.

While TSCA modernization is likely to be substantially less contentious than the cap-and-trade and health care debates, there will be the inevitable differences between industry and environmental groups on the details of how to get it done. Despite these "devil in the details" issues, there is general agreement on the principles that a new TSCA will have to entail. Among these are that some form of prioritization is necessary for the new law to be workable, that industry will need to provide more health and safety data than required under TSCA, and that there will be incentives for more "green chemistry." Biomonitoring of some sort is also a possible addition to chemical control.

At a recent Senate hearing, EPW Committee chairwoman Barbara Boxer stated that TSCA reform is a priority for the committee. Boxer informed Lautenberg at the hearing that “You have my word that TSCA is very high up on my agenda.” With all sides agreeing that some modernization is necessary, this would seem to be a good time for a new law to be passed.

So we'll just have to see if TSCA reform will slip in between other major legislation. I'll continue to provide updates here as they happen.

Book Review – Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save Earth’s Climate by Stephen H. Schneider

Read this book. Seriously. Read it. Those who are familiar with the IPCC and with the climate change discussions will have heard of Stephen H. Schneider. Not only did he receive the collective 2007 Nobel Peace Prize as a member of the IPCC (along with Al Gore), Schneider has played an important and often pivotal role in the development of the science over the last four decades. He has also been the focus of much of the climate denialist attacks.

In Science as a Contact Sport, Schneider gives us a reasoned, informative and insightful look into both the history of climate change science and the inner workings of the IPCC process in developing the first four Assessment Reports. Essentially this is a memoir, and through his personal experiences from the center of the scientific debate Schneider opens a window into how the scientific consensus was developed over more than forty years of focused research, as well as glimpses into the initial discovery of the role of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases in causing a warming of the earth.

In a writing style that mirrors his real-life tendency of being both in-your-face and humorous, his use of anecdote and metaphor are instrumental in getting the point across and tunneling into the real issues. Climate deniers, as he calls them, have used his earlier work on the cooling of the atmosphere due to aerosol releases to suggest that he is a scientist for any temperature. This is just one example of the way denialists misrepresent his work and the work of others to push their free market agendas. He addresses some of these willful distortions in chapters on how the companies who are most affected by possible policy options “heat up” the debate and in a chapter called “Media Wars: The Stories Behind Persistent Distortion.” He coins the term “mediarology” to define how difficult it is to communicate honestly complex science through the media. And he talks about other tactics used to distort the discussion, where the deniers goal isn’t to inform the truth but to be victorious (defined as “delaying” action). Schneider notes that even though such obvious denier fraud as the “Great Global Warming Swindle,” which was thoroughly debunked as garbage at the time it was released (hundreds of errors and a willful attempt to mislead), is still used by denialists to “support” their charade.

But the main benefit of the book is the “history-in-the-making” aspect of the process. From the inside Schneider relates how scientists first came to suspect that the world was getting warmer, the investigations that were undertaken, the honest disagreements between scientists as they tried to understand what they were observing, how increasing technological and computing capability from the 1970s through the present day allowed greater and more accurate modeling, and how the IPCC process works to develop a consensus. This last part is particularly revealing, as the IPCC insists that there be 100% consensus on the final work product. All parties argue for days to come up with just the right wording, and since the IPCC consists of representatives from the governments of all parts of the world, there were many cases where countries like Saudi Arabia, China, and Russia pushed for more moderate language than the scientists felt was warranted by their review of the scientific literature. The result is two-fold. First, that no one can claim their views went unheard. And second, the final conclusions in the IPCC reports are clearly much more moderated than the science would have predicted. In other words, the IPCC reports are more likely to be underestimating the problem rather than overestimating it. Having followed the process in Schneider’s book, it is easy to see why more recent science tends to show the problem is getting worse, faster than the IPCC predicted.

I recommend this book to everyone looking to get an insider’s view of the history and process of the development of our understanding of climate change.

Other science book reviews.

The Copenhagen Climate Change Conference - Getting the News as it Happens

Several outlets are sources of information on the COP15 UN Climate Change Conference running from December 7 to December 18, 2009 in Copenhagen.

The official COP15 web site has continuous news coverage of events and background information.

Also see the web site of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

Politico has a special coverage section.

The Washington Post has a special section on climate change that will follow COP15 and related developments.

YouTube will carry videos and a CNN/YouTube debate. See here for an opening video called "Please Help the World."

Twitter is another source of info.

Climate Progress will have updates.

For background information on COP15, you can check out the following: Wikipedia

Keep checking back for updates during the 2 weeks (Dec. 7-18, 2009)

Statement of EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson - Senate Hearing on TSCA Chemical Control Reform

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson testified at the Senate hearing on TSCA reform on Wednesday, December 2, 2009. The title of the hearing is "Oversight Hearing on the Federal Toxic Substances Control Act.”

In her testimony, Jackson reiterated the EPA principles that she had introduced in late September.

First, chemicals should be reviewed against safety standards that are based on sound science and reflect risk‐based criteria protective of human health and the environment. Safety standards should be driven solely by scientific evidence of risks. EPA should have the clear authority to establish safety standards that reflect the best available science while recognizing the need to assess and manage risk in the face of uncertainty.

Second, the responsibility for providing adequate health and safety information should rest on industry. Manufacturers must develop and submit the hazard, use, and exposure data demonstrating that new and existing chemicals under review are safe. If industry doesn’t provide the information, EPA should have the necessary tools to quickly and efficiently require testing, or obtain other information from manufacturers that are relevant to determining the safety of chemicals, without the delays and obstacles currently in place, or excessive claims of confidential business information.

Third, EPA should have clear authority to take risk management actions when chemicals do not meet the safety standard, with flexibility to take into account a range of considerations, including children’s health, economic costs, social benefits, and equity concerns. EPA and industry must include special consideration for exposures and effects on groups with higher vulnerabilities – particularly children. For example, children ingest chemicals at a higher ratio to their body weight than adults, and are more susceptible to long‐term damage and developmental problems. Our new principles offer them much stronger protections.

Fourth, EPA should have clear authority to set priorities for conducting safety reviews. In all cases, EPA and chemical producers must act on priority chemicals in a timely manner, with firm deadlines to maintain accountability. This will not only assure prompt protection of health and the environment, but provide business with the certainly that it needs for planning and investment.

Fifth, we must encourage innovation in green chemistry, and support research, education, recognition, and other strategies that will lead us down the road to safer and more sustainable chemicals and processes. All of this must happen with transparency and concern for the public’s right to know.

Finally, implementation of the law should be adequately and consistently funded, in order to meet the goal of assuring the safety of chemicals, and to maintain public confidence that EPA is meeting that goal. To that end, manufacturers of chemicals should support the costs of Agency implementation, including the review of information provided by manufacturers.

Jackson acknowledged that coming up with a new law will take time. So she noted that she had instructed Steve Owens to use all the current authority TSCA gives EPA very aggressively. Starting with completing and making public a series of “action plans” for the chemicals which will outline the risks that the use of these chemicals may present and what steps we may take to address those concerns.

More on the hearings to come.

13 US States Issue Recommendations for TSCA Chemical Control Reform

Recently the House held hearings on reform of the over 30-year old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), and yesterday the Senate followed suit with its own hearing. Yesterday also was important because thirteen US states released "a set of principles designed to ensure that the debate over reforming the nation’s outdated chemical policy stays focused on protecting public health and the environment.:

“Current federal chemical regulations fail to adequately protect the nation’s citizens and environment from toxic chemicals and unsafe products,” said David Littell, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. “The effects of exposure to toxic chemicals on human health, the environment, and the economy are enormous and often avoidable.”

Not surprisingly, California is one of the states taking action. In addition, Maine and Washington are taking state level action. The other states contributing to the principles are Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Vermont.

The eight recommendations listed are:

1) Require Chemical Data Reporting

2) Demonstrate Chemicals and Products are Safe

3) Prioritize Chemicals of Concern

4) Protect the Most Vulnerable

5) Promote Safer Chemicals and Products

6) Address Emerging Contaminants

7) Strengthen Federal Law & Preserve States' Rights

8) Fund State Programs

A press release summarizing these recommendation is available on the Maine DEP web site. I'll continue to monitor developments both on the state and federal levels. See here for the opening remarks of yesterday's Senate hearing. I'll post summaries of the remarks of all the witnesses in the following days as well as analysis of what all these hearings mean for the modernization of TSCA.

Statement of Barbara Boxer - Senate Hearing on TSCA Chemical Control Reform

As I noted yesterday, today there is a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing entitled "Oversight Hearing on the Federal Toxic Substances Control Act.” As I write this the hearing is still going on, but here are the opening remarks of Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer. I'll provide additional information on each of the witnesses in coming days. Witnesses are EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, John Stephenson at GAO, and Linda Birnbaum who heads the NIEHS.

STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN BOXER
SENATE ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE
HEARING ON THE TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT
DECEMBER 2, 2009
(Remarks as prepared for delivery.)

When President Ford signed the Toxic Substances Control Act, TSCA in 1976, the law was supposed to help assure that toxic chemicals would be restricted or banned if they were hazardous.

However, more than three decades later, TSCA has not lived up to that promise. Court decisions and poor implementation have severely weakened the Act’s effectiveness over the years, and TSCA does not include sufficient protections for pregnant women, infants, children and others who are particularly vulnerable to chemical exposures.

In March 2009, the Government Accountability Office put EPA’s chemical management program on GAO’s list of “high risk” programs.

The GAO’s report found: “EPA has failed to develop sufficient chemical assessment information to limit public exposure to many chemicals that may pose substantial health risks.”

I am pleased to see that the Obama Administration is listening, and the EPA is stepping up to the plate on the need to reform our toxics laws.

In September, 2009, EPA issued principles for TSCA reform that include common-sense steps to help address the risks of dangerous toxic chemicals. I look forward to Administrator Jackson’s testimony today on those principles.

Consumers in this country deserve to know that the chemicals we are exposed to every day are safe. The companies that most effectively produce the safest chemicals stand to gain market share, enhanced consumer confidence, and reduce their potential liability costs.

My State of California has led the way in reducing threats from dangerous chemicals, such as phthalates and lead in children’s products. I am proud to have helped pass federal legislation that protects children from these chemicals in the Consumer Protection Safety and Improvement Act of 2008.

There is growing consensus that now is the time to act to transform America’s toxic chemical policies. Senator Lautenberg and I are working on a bill to overhaul TSCA, by requiring the chemical industry to prove their chemicals are safe for pregnant women, infants, children, and other vulnerable populations.

Public health, environmental, environmental justice and other groups have also called for reform that focuses on protecting all people from toxic chemicals, and encouraging the use of safer alternatives to dangerous substances.

The American Chemistry Council’s has issued principles that “support Congress’ effort to modernize our nation’s chemical management system.”

We have a responsibility to America’s families to ensure that the chemicals in the environment, and in the products they use every day have been scientifically tested and that they and their children are not put at risk.

This Committee has the opportunity to strengthen our nation’s toxics laws to ensure that evaluations on the safety of chemicals are made based on science and public health and that all people – especially the most vulnerable – are protected.

Today’s hearing is an important step forward in that process.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today.

Witnesses Identified to Testify in Senate Hearing on TSCA Chemical Control Reform

The Senate has announced the witnesses that will by testifying at a joint hearing of both the full committee and subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health scheduled for Wednesday, December 2, 2009.

The title of the hearing is "Oversight Hearing on the Federal Toxic Substances Control Act.”

Witnesses include, after opening remarks by the Chairwoman:

Panel 1

The Honorable Lisa Jackson
Administrator
United States Environmental Protection Agency


Panel 2

John B. Stephenson
Director, Natural Resources & Environment
U.S. Government Accountability Office

Linda Birnbaum Ph.D.
Director
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program


This hearing is part of the duties of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which Barbara Boxer chairs and James Inhofe is ranking minority member.

The hearing will begin at 2:30 pm EST in the EPW Hearing Room - 406 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Recently the House also held a hearing on TSCA reform, focusing on prioritization of chemicals first to be addressed. See my series of articles beginning with this summary and followed on subsequent days with more in-depth summaries of each of the witnesses.

A webcast of the hearing is now available.

I will also provide additional information on witness testimony following this Senate hearing.

Climate Denialists Still Lying About CRU Emails - The CRU Responds

A statement from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit can be read here.

Using quotes (in italics below) from the cited link, note that:

1) The denialists are lying about not having access to the CRU data:

“It is well known within the scientific community and particularly those who are sceptical of climate change that over 95% of the raw station data has been accessible through the Global Historical Climatology Network for several years. We are quite clearly not hiding information which seems to be the speculation on some blogs and by some media commentators,” commented the University’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Research Enterprise and Engagement Professor Trevor Davies.

2) The denialists are lying when they say that the emails reveal a conspiracy to adjust data.

There is nothing in the stolen material which indicates that peer-reviewed publications by CRU, and others, on the nature of global warming and related climate change are not of the highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation.

3) The denialists are lying when they say that the data don't support the scientific consensus. Obviously the scientific consensus was reached AFTER the data overwhelmingly led scientists to that conclusion. And all of the data from other sources all support this conclusion, not just the CRU data.

Our global temperature series tallies with those of other, completely independent, groups of scientists working for NASA and the National Climate Data Center in the United States, among others. Even if you were to ignore our findings, theirs show the same results. The facts speak for themselves; there is no need for anyone to manipulate them.

4) The denialists are lying when they claim there are "many" emails that "prove illegal behavior." There is no such thing. There are only a handful of emails cherry picked from over 1000 stolen in which the denialists are creatively interpreting the wording to fit their preconceived non-scientific views.

A selection of these emails have been taken out of context and misinterpreted as evidence that CRU has manipulated climate data to present an unrealistic picture of global warming. This conclusion is entirely unfounded and the evidence from CRU research is entirely consistent with independent evidence assembled by various research groups around the world.

5) The denialists are lying when they say the evidence is not there, when in fact the evidence of human-induced global warming is overwhelming.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its 4th Assessment Report (AR4) published in 2007 concluded that the warming of the climate system was unequivocal. This conclusion was based not only on the observational temperature record, although this is the key piece of evidence, but on multiple strands of evidence. These factors include: long-term retreat of glaciers in most alpine regions of the world; reductions in the area of the Northern Hemisphere (NH) snow cover during the spring season; reductions in the length of the freeze season in many NH rivers and lakes; reduction in Arctic sea-ice extent in all seasons, but especially in the summer; increases in global average sea level since the 19th century; increases in the heat content of the ocean and warming of temperatures in the lower part of the atmosphere since the late 1950s.

The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Climate Science Report (or What's Been Happening Since the Last IPCC Report?)

‘The Copenhagen Diagnosis’ is a special report prepared by 26 climate researchers, most of whom are authors of published IPCC reports. In it they conclude "that several important aspects of climate change are occurring at the high end or even beyond the expectations of only a few years ago."

The text of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) was drafted more than three years ago, and since then "many hundreds of papers have been published on a suite of topics related to human-induced climate change." Therefore, the purpose of this new report is to "synthesize the most policy-relevant climate science published" in that time. According to the authors, the rationale is two-fold:

First, the report "serves as an interim evaluation of the evolving science midway through an IPCC cycle - IPCC AR5 is not due for completion until 2013."

Second, and the authors believe the most important, the report "serves as a handbook of science updates that supplements the IPCC AR4 in time for Copenhagen in December 2009, and any national or international climate change policy negotiations that follow."

Purposefully targeting readership by policy-makers, stakeholders, the media and the broader public, each section of the report "begins with a set of key points that summarises the main findings." The authors note that the "science contained in the report is based on the most credible and significant peer-reviewed literature available at the time of publication."

From the Executive Summary, the most significant recent climate change findings are:

Surging greenhouse gas emissions: Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were nearly 40 percent higher than those in 1990. Even if global emission rates are stabilized at present-day levels, just 20 more years of emissions would give a 25 percent probability that warming exceeds 2°C, even with zero emissions after 2030. Every year of delayed action increases the chances of exceeding the 2°C warming.

Recent global temperatures demonstrate human-induced warming: Over the past 25 years temperatures have increased at a rate of 0.19°C per decade, in very good agreement with predictions based on greenhouse gas increases. Even over the past 10 years, despite a decrease in solar forcing, the trend continues to be one of warming. Natural, short-term fluctuations are occurring as usual, but there have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend.

Acceleration of melting of ice-sheets, glaciers and ice-caps: A wide array of satellite and ice measurements now demonstrate beyond doubt that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice caps in other parts of the world has also accelerated since 1990.

Rapid Arctic sea ice decline: Summertime melting of Arctic sea ice has accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models. The area of sea ice melt during 2007-9 was about 40 percent greater than the average prediction from IPCC AR4 climate models.

Current sea level rise underestimated: Satellites show recent global average sea level rise (3.4 millimeters per year over the past 15 years) to be around 80 percent above past IPCC predictions. This acceleration in sea level rise is consistent with a doubling in contribution from melting of glaciers, ice caps and the Greenland and West-Antarctic ice sheets.

Sea level predictions revised: By 2100, global sea level is likely to rise at least twice as much as projected by the Working Group 1 of the IPCC AR4; for unmitigated emissions it may well exceed one meter. The upper limit has been estimated as about two meters sea level rise by 2100. Sea level will continue to rise for centuries after global temperatures have been stabilized, and several meters of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries.

Delay in action risks irreversible damage: Several vulnerable elements in the climate system (e.g. continental ice sheets, Amazon rain forest, West African monsoon and others) could be pushed towards abrupt or irreversible change if warming continues in a business-as-usual way throughout this century. The risk of transgressing critical thresholds (“tipping points”) increases strongly with ongoing climate change. Thus waiting for higher levels of scientific certainty could mean that some tipping points will be crossed before they are recognized.

The turning point must come soon: If global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2°C above preindustrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly. To stabilize climate, a de-carbonized global society – with near-zero emissions of CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases – needs to be reached well within this century. More specifically, the average annual per-capita emissions will have to shrink to well under one metric ton CO2 by 2050. This is 80-95 percent below the per-capita emissions in developed nations in 2000.

Clearly the time to act is now.

Senate to Hold Hearing on TSCA Chemical Control Reform

The Senate has announced that it will hold a joint hearing of both the full committee and subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health next Wednesday, December 2, 2009. This is part of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which is Barbara Boxer chairs and James Inhofe is ranking minority member.

The title of the hearing will be "Oversight Hearing on the Federal Toxic Substances Control Act.”

It is scheduled to begin at 2:30 pm EST in the EPW Hearing Room - 406 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

So far no witnesses have been announced. I'll provide an update here when they do, or you can check the Committee's web site.

Last week the House held a hearing on TSCA reform.

Beth Bosley Testimony at Congressional Hearing on TSCA Chemical Control

Today I continue with the testimony of the final witness present at the November 17, 2009 Congressional hearings on "Prioritizing Chemicals for Safety Determination." Earlier I gave an overall summary. Beth Bosley is Managing Director of the Boron Specialties company, but spoke on behalf of the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA). SOCMA is a trade association that represents the batch and custom chemical industry, which are typically small to medium-sized businesses and thus may not have the more extensive resources of the larger chemical firms.

Bosley noted that SOCMA agrees with the idea that TSCA needs to be modernized, but said that this should be done in a way that "doesn't devastate a strategic American industry that is already facing recession and foreign competition." She offered two essential principles for "a sustainable chemical management law that won't eliminate jobs, economic growth, or products."

1) Priorities must be based on risk: Bosley noted that this means "basing priorities and regulatory criteria on the scientific evaluation of toxicological response and exposure factors." She gave an example of a chemical that may be highly toxic but used only in strictly controlled industrial environments or in small quantities, and as such would actually have a fairly small risk to public health.

2) Proven regulatory mechanisms should be the basis for modernization: Bosley insisted that the modernized TSCA must rely on leveraging regulatory mechanisms that work in the US. She said that applying an approach like the European REACH approach in the US "would devastate small and medium sized companies...and do so unnecessarily since a more practical alternative is available. She suggested that "the Canadian approach to chemicals management has systematically prioritized that nation's inventory and is, therefore, much farther ahead of the EU with respect to evaluating chemicals in commerce."

Bosley also said that SOCMA supports the idea of an "inventory reset," which was part of EPA's Chemical Assessment and Management Program (ChAMP), a program that was recently discontinued. She noted that of the "over 80,000 chemicals now listed on the inventory, data suggest that only about 1/3 of these are presently in commerce." Thus, "resetting" the inventory to include only those now in production would significantly reduce the number of chemicals that need to be prioritized and categorized. Bosley suggested that "ChAMP should not have been abandoned, because it will just have to be reinstituted under another name."

Bosley said that we should "embrace TSCA mechanisms that have worked well, like the New Chemicals Program," which through its PreManufacture Notice (PMN) process reviews over 1,000 new chemicals every year. She also encouraged everyone to recognize "the massive amount of data that was generated by EPA's High Production Volume Program and leverage that data in making initial determinations of risk." She felt that "with reasonable amendments," TSCA could provide an easier mechanism to collect data from manufacturers and users related to a) volumes manufactured, processed or used, b) health effects, and c) exposure characteristics.

Finally, she noted that the "safety" standard used by EPA to make determinations should involve:

1) Not overlooking the basic principle of risk (i.e., the evaluation of both hazard and exposure, not just hazard),

2) Not let EPA get burdened with having to determine that each chemical is safe for its intended use (i.e., chemicals need to be prioritized so that only those really of concern should need to be evaluated in depth, and for only those uses that are of concern), and

3) EPA must be adequately funded no matter what approach Congres takes in modernizing TSCA. Bosley noted that "the biggest shortcoming of the TSCA program today is lack of resources, not lack of authority."

Well, that summarizes all of the witnesses who testified at the November 17, 2009 House subcommittee hearing. This is the follow up to a House hearing held back on February 26, 2009, which I discussed earlier.

In addition to the in-person witnesses there was some written testimony provided to the subcommittee. There were also statements published by several other interested stakeholders such at the American Chemistry Council, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Environmental Working Group, and others. I'll be reviewing these in the coming days. I'll also be providing some critical analysis contrasting the different viewpoints and looking at what a final bill might look like.

Bill Greggs Testimony at Congressional Hearing on TSCA Chemical Control

This is a continuation of my series taking a closer look at the November 17, 2009 Congressional hearings on "Prioritizing Chemicals for Safety Determination." Earlier I gave an overall summary. Today I look at the testimony of William (Bill) Greggs, who is now a private Chemical and Environmental Policy Consultant but for 37 years was a chemical engineer and global chemical policy expert with the Procter & Gamble Company. Greggs was testifying on behalf of three processor and user organizations, namely the Consumer Specialty Products Association (CSPA), the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), and the Soap and Detergent Association (SDA).

Greggs noted that "CSPA, GMA and SDA are committed to manufacturing and marketing safe and innovative products." He emphasized that the organizations agree that TSCA needs to be modernized and that it is critical that there be "development of a mechanism by which EPA will prioritize existing chemicals for review and assessment." He believes that "a priority setting process developed by Congress must be risk-based, taking into account both a chemical's hazards and potential exposures. Chemicals identified as the high priorities should be those substances with both the highest hazards and the highest potential exposures." (emphasis in original)

He noted that the three organizations have "collaborated with various industry representatives on the development of a risk-based and efficient tool that EPA can use to prioritize chemical substances." They recommend a framework that accounts for increasing levels of hazard on one axis and increasing levels of exposure on the other axis. On the hazard axis the criteria could include whether the substance was a carcinogen, mutagen or reproductive toxicant (CMR) or persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT), as well as others. For exposure axis the indicators could include the use pattern of the chemical, its biomonitoring findings (e.g., the CDC data), industrial releases as reported through the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), and whether the chemical is found in water or the air.

The belief is that this process would identify the chemicals with greatest potential risk for prioritized review. Greggs asserted that stakeholders must be allowed to review and comment on the draft assessments, and that they must be given the opportunity to "provide additional information enabling a more informed decision or to remedy erroneous results of the priority setting process." He noted that "this is a critical component Congress must include that will significantly improve the results of this very important exercise."

Greggs felt that "done properly, this priority setting process would rank all chemicals from highest to lowest in a relatively short period of time." He noted that "the complete priority setting process will take EPA some time to accomplish," and therefore he encouraged Congress "to develop an additional mechanism that will enable EPA to identify the chemicals of highest priority for immediate assessment." To accomplish this, he recommended a process "that would require EPA to screen the data from the most recent Inventory Update Rule (IUR) submissions to identify chemicals that have the highest hazards and highest potential exposures. (emphasis in original) Through this process he believes "EPA could identify 50 to 100 chemicals that could quickly move into EPA's safety assessment process while the Agency works on prioritizing the remaining chemicals in commerce" using the tool described above.

Tomorrow I will take a look at the testimony of Beth Bosley, a consultant for the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA).

Daryl Ditz Testimony at Congressional Hearing on TSCA Chemical Control

This is a continuation of my series taking a closer look at the November 17, 2009 Congressional hearings on "Prioritizing Chemicals for Safety Determination." Earlier I gave an overall summary. Today I look at the testimony of Daryl Ditz, a Senior Policy Advisor for the Center for International Environmental Law.

Ditz started by saying that "despite its aspirational title, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) has failed to assess, let alone guarantee, the safety of the great majority of chemicals in use today." He further suggested that "TSCA stymies action by EPA and other agencies, perpetuates a reliance on dangerous substances, leaves businesses in the dark, and undermines U.S. competitiveness." Needless to say, Mr. Ditz believes the time is right to modernize TSCA.

He offered three recommendations for fixing TSCA.

1) To expedite action, Ditz said that "Congress should authorize EPA to promptly identify and phase out non-essential uses of a set of high-priority chemicals." He believes that "a slow, cumbersome safety determination process for these high-priority chemicals is neither necessary nor appropriate." He identifies these as the "worst-of-the-worst," defined primarily as those chemicals that exhibit PBT properties, i.e., Persistent, Bioaccumulative, and Toxic. Many PBT chemicals have already been identified and are characterized by remaining largely unchanged in the environment or people's bodies for long periods of time, biomagnify up the food chain (e.g., concentrations get higher as you move from plant to animal to higher order animal), and show high toxicity. Ditz believes that the old "unreasonable risk" standard in TSCA has actually prevented EPA from taking action on chemicals it knows need to be regulated.

2) Congress should "authorize EPA to prioritize the order in which all chemicals, new as well as existing, are assessed against a health-based standard." Ditz said that industry should be required to prove the safety of their chemicals (rather than the current system in which EPA must demonstrate lack of safety). He mentioned that the 2008 Kid Safe Chemical Act (which was never passed) would have prioritized chemicals for further review, but that prioritization shouldn't be used to exclude them from review, just determine the order they are reviewed. He noted that the previous administration's ChAMP initiative was "misguided" in that in trying to sort through nearly 7000 chemicals it "wrongly labeled 'low risk'" many chemicals on the basis of inadequate and unreliable data. Ditz felt the process advocated by the American Chemistry Council in its recently released "principles for TSCA modernization" would "repeat this mistake by subjecting only a fraction of existing chemicals," often based on limited data, to a safety determination and "letting the majority of chemicals sidestep credible evaluation."

3) Congress should ensure that "up-to-date, comprehensive information is available on all chemicals, to protect the health and safety of Americans and foster confidence in the market." Ditz noted repeatedly that the quantity and quality of data available in which to do these prioritizations was severely limited for most chemicals. He said that "U.S. policy should require chemical manufacturers to develop, submit and periodically update data on the potential hazards, exposures, and uses of chemicals they manufacture or import." He insisted that minimum data requirements are needed because major data gaps limit the ability to make informed assessments.

Finally, Mr. Ditz seconded the need for CDC and other organizations to conduct biomonitoring as "an important check on human exposures in the real world." He also believes that the ongoing efforts in Europe (REACH) and Canada (Chemical Categorization Program) can be used to help inform the evaluation of chemicals in the United States.

Tomorrow I will take a look at the testimony of William J. Greggs, a consultant for the Consumer Specialty Products Association, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, and the Soap and Detergent Association (and formerly with Procter & Gamble).