Senator Lautenberg Calls for Senate Vote on Safe Chemicals Act

Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) is calling for a vote in the full Senate on his Safe Chemicals Act. Originally introduced April 14, 2011, the bill was passed out of the Environment and Public Works Committee last week. The bill is "designed to protect Americans from dangerous toxic chemicals that are found in everyday consumer products." Lautenberg now wants the bill to get a vote in the Senate.

A 174-page Amendment that documents all of the changes to the original bill (S.847) was released by the Committee. The committee also issued a short summary highlighting the key changes. These changes comprehensively alter the bill from its original "NGO-friendly" form to its now very "Industry-friendly" form. Still, Lautenberg has not been able to get any Republican to join the 25 Democratic co-sponsors of the bill. Lautenberg called on his fellow Senators to put the bill to a vote,  "either for or against." He noted that "families deserve to know" what Senators from both sides of the aisle "are thinking as we go through this process."





After languishing for nearly one and half years after its introduction, the bill took on new emphasis following an investigative reporting series by the Chicago Tribune. The Tribune reported that there had been collusion between the chemical industry and the tobacco industry to overstate the effectiveness of flame retardants and understate the health risks. A rather contentious hearing was held the day before the Committee vote, during which Senator Boxer went so far as to suggest one of the witnesses should "take a course in ethics."

It is clear that Lautenberg does not expect the bill to pass a full Senate vote since it would need to reach 60 votes to invoke cloture just to bring it to the floor for a real vote. With only 53 Democrats and Independents possibly voting for the bill and all 47 Republicans likely voting against it no matter what changes are made in debate, the bill is essentially dead on arrival. But he does feel that after 7 years of introducing bills and making substantive changes that make the bill more industry-friendly, the public should know what each Senator believes about protecting human health and the environment.

Senator Durbin Holds Hearing on Brominated Flame Retardants

Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) held a hearing on Tuesday, July 17, 2012 regarding the question:

AreConsumers Adequately Protected from Flammability of Upholstered Furniture?  Hearing on the Effectiveness of FurnitureFlammability Standards and Flame Retardant Chemicals.

Durbin's concern stems from a recent Chicago Tribune investigative series that suggested the flame retardant industry had misled regulators on both the effectiveness and safety of a class of brominated flame retardants called PBDEs. The Senator is a strong supporter of overhauling the 26-year old TSCA law and is a co-sponsor of the Safe Chemicals Act introduced by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ).


Scheduled witnesses at the July 17th hearing were:

 

Panel I

·        The Honorable Inez Tenenbaum, Chairman, Consumer Product Safety Commission.

·        James J. Jones, Acting Assistant Administrator, Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, Environmental Protection Agency.

Panel II

·        August (Gus) Schaefer, Sr., Vice President and Chief Safety Officer, Underwriters Laboratories, Inc.

·        Andy Counts, CEO, American Home Furnishings Alliance.

·        Peter Van Dorpe, Chief of the Training Division for Chicago Fire Department.

More information on the hearing can be found here.

Lautenberg Leads Bipartisan Group of 26 Senators in Calling for Reform of Toxic Chemicals Law

Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and 25 other Senators, including three Republicans, wrote a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson yesterday to "express our support for...actions to address a class of flame retardant chemicals called polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs)."  PBDEs are "found in a number of everyday consumer products" and were the subject of a recent Chicago Tribune investigative report that "revealed that flame retardant manufacturers may have misled the public for decades regarding both the risks and efficacy of these chemicals."

As part of its chemical action plan issued in December 2009, EPA proposed several actions under its existing TSCA authority to address the risks of PBDEs and collect additional data for assessment. Some of those actions are in progress while the implementation of others are uncertain given the continuing attempts to cut EPA budgets and limit its use of TSCA authority.  In the letter the Senators "commend the EPA for taking steps to address PBDEs," but acknowledge that Congress must take action to reform the current TSCA law.

Lautenberg introduced his latest version of the Safe Chemical Act this past year but has been unable to move it even to committee debate because no Republicans have offered any support for discussions to take place.  Lautenberg did get three Republican Senators - Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins from Maine and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska - to sign on to this current PBDE letter and has hopes that Republicans will concede to begin debate on TSCA reform.  However, Senator Snowe is retiring at the end of this term and given the unlikelihood of any significant action being undertaken prior to the November elections, it may be that Lautenberg is leaning more on wishful thinking than any actual belief that Republicans will agree to support TSCA reform.

More information can be found on Senator Lautenberg's web page.

The letter can be viewed or downloaded as a PDF here.