The long-awaited, landmark legislation would overhaul the way the federal government protects the public from toxic chemicals.
Representatives Waxman and Rush have announced an aggressive schedule in the House of Representatives to complete committee action by mid-summer.
The Safe Chemicals Act would amend the federal Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA). TSCA grandfathered in 62,000 chemicals at the time it passed without requiring any testing or demonstration of safety.
In the ensuing three decades under TSCA, EPA has required testing for only a few hundred of those chemicals, and has only partially restricted five. Meanwhile, a growing body of science has documented widespread human exposures to toxic chemicals in everyday products, and has linked those exposures to the rising incidence of a number of serious chronic diseases and disorders, including reduced fertility, learning disabilities, breast and prostate cancer, and certain childhood cancers.
“Thanks to Senator Lautenberg’s leadership, we are one step closer to the day when we can move about our daily lives without worrying about carcinogens and hormone disruptors lurking in our kitchenware, mattresses, and children’s toys.” said Earthjustice Legislative Associate Emily Enderle. “We look forward to working with Congress as it gets to work making that day a reality.”
While there are differences between the House and Senate versions of the legislation, the Safe Chemicals Act includes a number of essential reforms that would substantially improve public health protections:
- Requiring chemical companies to develop and make publicly available basic health and safety information for all chemicals
- Requiring chemicals to meet a safety standard that protects vulnerable sub-populations, including pregnant women and children
- A new program to identify communities that are “hot spots” for toxic chemicals and to take action to reduce exposures
- Expediting safety determinations and actions to restrict some of the most notorious chemicals, like formaldehyde, vinyl chloride, and flame retardants
While supporting the legislation, the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition called for improvements in three critical areas. As currently drafted, the legislation would:
- Allow hundreds of new chemicals to enter the market and be used in products for many years without first requiring them to be shown to be safe
- Not provide clear authority for EPA to immediately restrict production and use of the most dangerous chemicals, even persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) chemicals, which already have been extensively studied and are restricted by governments around the world
- Would not require EPA to adopt the National Academy of Sciences’ recommendations to incorporate the best and latest science when determining the safety of chemicals, although the Senate bill does call on EPA to consider those recommendations
Environmental justice groups have been particularly supportive of the provisions mandating EPA to develop action plans to reduce the disproportionately high exposures to toxic chemicals in some communities.
Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families promises a robust campaign to educate the public and members of Congress about both the positive aspects and the shortcomings of the Safe Chemicals Act.
“The Safe Chemicals Act goes a long way toward bringing chemical policy into the 21st century,” said Andy Igrejas, Director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, in a press teleconference. “We look forward to working with Congress to strengthen the bill to keep dangerous chemicals out of the marketplace.”
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EPA Finalizes the 2008 National U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory
The downward trend is attributed to a decrease in carbon dioxide emissions associated with fuel and electricity consumption.
Total emissions of the six main greenhouse gases in 2008 were equivalent to 6,957 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. The gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride. Though overall emissions dropped in 2008, emissions are still 13.5% higher than they were in 1990.
This is the latest annual report that the United States has submitted to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The convention sets an overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle the challenge posed by climate change. EPA prepares the annual report with experts from multiple federal agencies and after gathering comments from a broad range of stakeholders across the country.
The inventory tracks annual greenhouse gas emissions at the national level and presents historical emissions from 1990 to 2008. The inventory also calculates carbon dioxide emissions that are removed from the atmosphere by “sinks,” which occurs through the uptake of carbon by forests, vegetation, and soils.
EPA to Hold Public Hearings on Additions to Greenhouse Gas Reporting Requirements
EPA has planned two public hearings on proposals to add reporting requirements for certain emissions source categories under the national mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting system.
The hearing on April 19 will cover GHGs from fugitive and vented emissions from the petroleum and natural gas industry. The hearing will also cover reporting from facilities that inject carbon dioxide underground for the purposes of geologic sequestration or enhanced oil and gas recovery. The April 20 hearing will focus on the part of the proposal requiring emissions reporting from industries that emit fluorinated gases.
The April 19 hearing for the oil and gas sector and facilities that inject and store carbon dioxide underground for the purposes of geologic sequestration or enhanced oil and gas recovery will begin at 9:00 a.m. and continue until 5:00 p.m. local time, at the following location:
U.S. EPA
One Potomac Yard (South Building)
Conference Center—Lobby Level
2777 S. Crystal Drive
Arlington, VA 22202
The April 20 hearing for industries that emit fluorinated gases will begin at 9:00 a.m. and continue until 12:00 p.m. local time, at the following location:
U.S. EPA
1310 L. St. N.W.
Room #152
Washington, D.C. 20005
For speaker registration, go to:
The public may also register on the day of the hearing but may not be given a specific time to speak. EPA also will accept written comments on the proposed standards until June 10, 2010.
Over 200 Groups Appeal Directly to Obama to Issue Federal Coal Ash Safeguards
For the last 180 days, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has held up the first ever federal regulations on coal ash disposal. Lobbyists with the power, mining, and coal ash industries have met with OMB nearly 30 times during this delay, putting pressure on the White House and the EPA to scale back and even scuttle any effective federal oversight of this toxic threat.
Since the disastrous spill in Harriman, Tennessee, in December 2008, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson has promised to issue federally enforceable safeguards for coal ash. But despite her best efforts, the rule has been delayed by OMB as millions of Americans living near over 1,000 coal ash dumps wait for stronger protections against this toxic threat.
“Continued delay in the issuance of federal regulations for the disposal of the 136 million tons of toxic coal combustion waste generated annually is dangerous and unacceptable,” the groups wrote in their letter. “Unmitigated harm, often to poor and minority communities, continues to threaten the lives and environment of millions of Americans.”
Coal ash is an abundant and dangerous byproduct of coal-fired power plants. The EPA and the Department of Energy estimate there are approximately 1,600 active and inactive coal ash ponds and landfills throughout the U.S. Coal-fired power plants produce approximately 136 million cubic yards of coal ash per year, enough to fill nearly 100 Empire State buildings, or enough to fill the cars of a train stretching from the North Pole to the South Pole.
Coal ash often contains dangerously high levels of toxic pollutants like arsenic, lead, selenium, and mercury. According to the EPA, cancer risk for children exposed to arsenic in drinking water from unlined coal ash ponds is as high as 1 in 50, or 2,000 times greater than the EPA’s own goal of acceptable cancer risk of 1 in 100,000 individuals.
Ohio EPA Proposes New Set of Hazardous Waste Rules
On April 14, 2010, Ohio EPA proposed a number of hazardous waste rules. This rules package, referenced as “Set J,” contains 213 rules, and includes amended, new, rescinded, and no-change rules submitted for 5-year review under ORC 119.032. Several federally-based subjects, and a few state-initiated subjects, are addressed in this rule-making.
Court Says Coal- and Oil-fired Power Plants Will Lose Bush-era Exemption
The agreement was approved by U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer of the District of Columbia after a public hearing held on April 13, 2010. Under the terms of the agreement, national standards will be finalized by November 16, 2011.
“EPA’s own data show that coal- and oil-fired power plants are the largest unregulated industrial emitters of toxic air emissions, including mercury, arsenic, nickel, chromium, cadmium, acid gases, and dioxins. EPA has been in a position to regulate this industry since 2000, and this landmark decision is a huge win in creating a healthier environment for all Americans,” said Ann B. Weeks, who represented environmental and public health plaintiffs The Ohio Environmental Council, Natural Resources Council of Maine, Izaak Walton League of America, Environment America, and Conservation Law Foundation, at the oral argument before the court.
“We welcome the court’s decision,” said Earthjustice attorney James Pew, who represented Sierra Club and Environmental Defense Fund in the case. “It ends the litigation and lets the real work begin: cleaning our air and water of the toxins that coal- and oil-fired power plants have been filling them with for far too long.”
Other attorneys on the briefs included John Suttles of the Southern Environmental Law Center, for the American Nurses Association and Physicians for Social Responsibility; John Walke for the Natural Resources Defense Council; Jon Mueller for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation; and Scott Edwards for Waterkeeper Alliance.
Alro Steel Fined $120,000 for SARA Title III Chemical Inventory Reporting Violations
EPA Region 5 has settled a case of hazardous chemical reporting violations involving Alro Steel Corp., in Jackson, Michigan. The consent agreement and final order applies to Alro facilities in Lansing, Michigan, Melrose Park, Illinois, and Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, Indiana. In the event of a fire or emergency, responders need to know what they are dealing with so they can take steps to protect people living or working in the area.
Alro Steel paid $120,000 to resolve the EPA notice that the company failed to submit to state and local authorities in four locations, the required chemical inventory forms for a variety of hazardous chemicals. The hazardous chemicals Alro used in its processing of steel included hydrogen, cutting fluid, acrylic enamels, chemtane, methane, propylene, propane, nitrogen, carbon dioxide gas, oxygen, argon, and acetylene. Alro also has sulfuric acid and lead in its lead-acid batteries that must be reported under the Tier II requirements.
Mobil Oil Guam and Mobil Oil Mariana Islands to Pay $2.4 Million for Failing to Control Air Emissions
Two subsidiaries of Exxon Mobil Corporation—Mobil Oil Guam, Inc. and Mobil Oil Mariana Islands, Inc.—have agreed to pay $2.4 million for allegedly violating the federal Clean Air Act by failing to control emissions from their facilities, the Justice Department and EPA have announced. Together these two companies have illegally discharged hundreds of tons of volatile organic compounds into the air each year from their bulk gasoline terminals on Cabras Island in Guam and in the Lower Base area of Saipan.
According to a complaint filed simultaneously with the settlement, Mobil Oil Guam and Mobil Oil Mariana Islands allegedly failed to install vapor pollution controls on thirteen storage tanks and all of their loading racks at gasoline storage facilities on the islands. Both also allegedly failed to comply with pollution limits, install pollution monitors, and submit required reports.
“This agreement will have a meaningful impact for the citizens who live and work around these facilities. By agreeing to install pollution controls on gasoline storage tanks and loading racks, Mobil Oil Guam and Mobil Oil Mariana Islands will eliminate significant levels of hazardous air pollutants,” said Ignacia S. Moreno, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.
“This enforcement action should serve as a warning to other large companies that they need to ensure that each part of their operations complies with the law—even facilities that are more than 7,000 miles from their headquarters,” said Jared Blumenfeld, the EPA’s regional administrator for the Pacific Southwest region. “In this case, Exxon Mobil stepped forward to address the long-standing pollution problems of its Guam and Saipan subsidiaries.”
As part of the settlement, both subsidiaries have agreed to install air pollution controls and monitors, submit required reports, and obtain appropriate permits. The two subsidiaries estimate that they will spend more than $15 million to bring the two bulk gasoline terminals into compliance with the Clean Air Act, reducing their yearly discharge of volatile organic compounds by close to 400 tons.
Bulk gasoline terminals are large storage tank facilities where gasoline is loaded into tank trucks for distribution to gasoline service stations. Vapors containing volatile organic compounds and hazardous air pollutants, including the known human carcinogen benzene, can leak from storage tanks, pipes, and tank trucks as they are loaded.
Texas-based Voluntary Purchasing Groups, Inc. Fined $128,300 for Violating Federal Pesticide Law
J. Wade Bowman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Voluntary Purchasing Groups, Inc. (VPG) of Bonham, Texas, has agreed to settle a complaint brought by the EPA for violating a federal pesticides law designed to provide proper registration, distribution, and sale of pesticides. The company was found in violation of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, also known as FIFRA.
According to the complaint, VPG distributed and sold a registered pesticide whose composition was different from its registration, and distributed and sold unregistered and/or misbranded pesticides including Hi-Yield 5% Malathion Dust, Ferti-Lome Come and Get It! Fire Ant Killer, Hi-Yield Dusting Wettable Sulphur, Ferti-Lome Dormant Spray and Summer Oil Spray, Natural Guard Lawn, Plant & Pet Insect Spray, and Hi-Yield Kill-A-Bug II.
“Assuring the safety of chemicals in our products, our environment and our bodies is one of our highest priorities,” said EPA Regional Administrator Al Armendariz. “Consumers need proper information to ensure they are using pesticides safely and correctly. Improper labeling can result in harm to public health and the environment.”
EPA inspectors, joined by staff from the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) conducted an inspection at VPG’s Bonham facility on July 27, 2008. The inspection was conducted as a result of several referrals from other EPA regions regarding VPG pesticide products being distributed and sold in violation of FIFRA. EPA and TDA inspectors collected copies of documents from VPG and verified the alleged violations.
Before selling or distributing any pesticide in the United States, companies are required to register the pesticide with the EPA. As part of the registration process, pesticides are labeled with both a registration number and an establishment number used for product tracking purposes. Also required on the label is information concerning the producer and name, and brand or trademark under which the pesticide is sold, as well as directions for use and other information to provide consumers with the information they need to use the products safely.
J.B. Silva Co. Fined $95,630 for Hazardous Waste Storage and Transportation Violations
The company, which recycles silver from photographic services, has also agreed to pay $6,600 in overdue permit fees it failed to remit.
The proprietor of the company, J.B. Silva, had operated the business for many years. When Silva’s daughter and son-in-law, Jill and James Thorpe, began to operate the company, they continued to pick up shipments of hazardous materials for recycling, but failed to ensure that the business operated in compliance with its permit and license.
“Continuing to operate under new proprietors was a mistake that could have led to a potentially dangerous situation,” said Richard Chalpin, director of MassDEP’s Northeast Regional Office in Wilmington. “All businesses, whether large or small, must provide proper training to ensure that hazardous materials and wastes are handled in accordance with applicable hazardous waste law, which are designed to protect the environment and public health.”
MassDEP originally inspected the company on July 21, 2009 after receiving a call from the Emergency Response unit of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Region 1 office in Boston. At the time of inspection, J.B. Silva Company had a permit to recycle precious metals and was a licensed transporter as listed under MassDEP’s hazardous waste regulations.
Some of the violations discovered during the inspection included storing hazardous waste and waste oil without a license, transporting hazardous waste and waste oil without a license, conducting precious metals recycling operations from January 2000 to October 2007 without a valid permit, improper labeling of hazardous waste and regulated recyclable material containers and other hazardous waste storage violations.
As a result of the initial inspection, the company was required to have all hazardous wastes and barrels removed from the facility, which is located in a residential area. The company’s recycling permit and transporter license were revoked and as an ongoing venture, J.B. Silva Company is now barred from applying in Massachusetts for any class or category of license or permit for any hazardous waste activity for a period of two years.
Safety-Kleen to Pay $40,000 Penalty for Hazardous Waste Violations
The company operates a hazardous and industrial waste transporter and transfer facility at 5148 Tractor Road. In November 2008, Ohio EPA was notified by Evergreen Recycling and Disposal Facility in Northwood that it had taken shipments of potentially hazardous waste from Safety-Kleen. The material had been treated and disposed of in the landfill.
Safety-Kleen also notified Ohio EPA of the violations, which the company said occurred due to internal operating errors. Safety-Kleen acknowledged that at least 36 times between July 2005 and June 2008, non-approved wastes were transported to Evergreen. Ohio EPA alleges the waste was characteristic for lead and occasionally for cadmium and chromium.
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Trivia Question of the Week
According to data from Water.org, how many people die annually from water-related diseases?
a. 3,575,000
b. 2,000,000
c. 1,000,000
d. 500,000