In response to a question at a National Press Club appearance on Monday, Lisa Jackson said that the EPA would be finalizing an action plan on BPA in the "very near future."
As I noted here in January, the EPA had announced in September that it would be releasing action plans on a number of chemicals, including BPA, but when the first group of plans was released in late December, BPA was not among them. I raised a red flag because EPA had sent six draft chemical action plans to White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) on December 14, OIRA hosted a meeting with BPA industry lobbyists a week later, then the BPA action plan was absent from the list of plans released on December 30. OIRA had no business reviewing the chemical action plans in the first place since they are not regulatory actions covered by EO 12,866.
Last week, Sen. Chuck Schumer put some pressure on EPA and OIRA, asking Administrator Jackson for a written explanation regarding the “confounding decision” to hold back the BPA action plan. Now that the BPA action plan has been released from OIRA’s grip (Inside Story, 3/4/10) and delivered to EPA for publication, what can we expect it to say?
Full textYesterday, the White House released a plan to restore Mississippi and Louisiana wetlands and barrier islands, which have been disappearing at a rapid clip for decades and continue to do so. Hurricane Katrina brought to the fore what many residents of these states already knew: federal, state, and local authorities were neither coordinated nor prepared to protect the Gulf Coast, its ecosystems, and its people from Mother Nature’s worst. (See CPR's report on Katrina).
The White House roadmap is designed to bring some much-needed order and leadership to Gulf Coast restoration efforts. It’s a strong sign from the Obama Administration that it is serious about protecting the Gulf Coast.
The roadmap also strives to put ecosystem restoration and sustainability “on a more equal footing with other priorities such as manmade navigation and structural approaches to flood protection and storm risk reduction.” It rightly notes that these priorities make up complex pieces of a larger whole: wetlands protect inland ecosystems and communities from dangerous storm surges, for example; bayous, bays, and estuaries produce much of the fish and wildlife that coastal fishermen and communities depend upon for their livelihoods. The elevation of these “ecosystem services” to having “value” on par with priorities such as river navigation is a heartening sign.
Full textImagine opening your medicine cabinet, only to find that the warning and information labels on your over-the-counter medications no longer include dosing information. How would you know how much Benadryl to take or how much aspirin to give to your child? A provision in the Occupational Health and Safety Administration’s (OSHA) proposed rule modifying its Hazard Communication (HazCom) Standard threatens to deprive U.S. workers of similar safety information—information they depend upon ever day to protect themselves against the hazardous chemicals that they use in the workplace. CPR Board Member Sidney Shapiro and I have prepared testimony for a public hearing OSHA is holding today on the proposed rule, making the case that the provision is unnecessary and that it would likely leave workers more vulnerable to workplace hazards (full HazCom testimony).
As the name suggests OSHA’s HazCom Standard establishes a system for communicating hazards about dangerous chemicals to the workers who use them. The standard requires manufacturers to provide a “Safety Data Sheet” on each chemical they produce that explains what hazards the chemical might pose to human health or safety, and recommends steps that users of the chemical should take to avoid these hazards.
In this regard, these Safety Data Sheets are a lot like the warning and information labels on over-the-counter medication. Just as you might consult the label before taking over-the-counter medication, workers would consult the relevant Safety Data Sheet before using a potentially dangerous chemical so that they know what precautions to take while using the chemical (For more information about the HazCom standard, see here.)
Full textToday the top brass from OSHA opened their doors to the many stakeholders who have something to say about how the agency is doing in its efforts to protect U.S. workers. Of course, they got an earful.
The event marks a new path for OSHA, in that the head of the agency and top career staff took the time to sit face-to-face with occupational health experts, workers, worker representatives, and even the families of victims of workplace accidents, not just the usual cast of characters from the industry lobbying firms.
And it wasn’t just a cattle call. OSHA head David Michaels, Debbie Berkowitz (Chief of Staff), Richard Fairfax (Director of Enforcement), and Dorothy Dougherty (Director of Standards) engaged the speakers in a way that showed they not only cared about what the speakers were saying but are genuinely interested in taking action to protect workers from occupational hazards – hazards we know about as well as emerging hazards.
My testimony, based on our recent report, Workers at Risk: Regulatory Dysfunction at OSHA, can be found here.
Full textThis post, by Sarah Vogel, is cross-posted from The Pump Handle.
If you thought the scientific debate about bisphenol A was over or even quieting down, you haven’t been reading the latest issues of Toxicological Sciences. (What are you doing with your spare time?) Last month in an editorial piece published in the journal, Richard Sharpe queried: “Is It Time to End Concerns over the Estrogenic Effects of Bisphenol A?” His answer was an unequivocal ‘yes’, based on the latest study from Ryan et al. (published in the same issue) that found no reproductive effects from bisphenol A exposure in rats. The study, according to Sharpe, “throws cold water on this controversy.”
Not so fast. On Wednesday, February 17, 2010, the journal published a second letter to the editors, “Flawed Experimental Design Reveals the Need for Guidelines Requiring Appropriate Positive Controls in Endocrine Disruption Research,” by Fred vom Saal and 23 other researchers. In a position quite contrary to Sharpe’s, the letter pointed to an important design flaw in the study.
This latest iteration of the controversy is about a fundamental and persistent challenge in the research on bisphenol A and other endocrine disrupting chemicals—what is the appropriate study design. Issues of animal selection, route of exposure, animal feed and housing, and appropriate use of positive controls all point to the complexity of studying extremely low levels of endocrine disruptors.
Full textOrdinarily, if an organization with the word “recycling” in its name said unkind things about the Center for Progressive Reform, I’d worry. But the other week, we got dinged by a newly launched outfit called “Citizens for Recycling First,” and I’m thinking it’s a badge of honor.
Before proceeding, let’s dwell for a moment on the mental images the group’s name conjures up. I’m thinking about plastic bins with recycling logos on their sides, filled by conscientious Americans with soup cans, beer bottles, and aluminum foil.
Perhaps you pull up a different mental image. But whatever it is, I’m pretty sure it’s not a big hole in the ground with toxic coal ash in it. That little bit of misdirection is probably just what the marketing types of the coal and coal ash industry had in mind when this latest front group went on line. And no doubt when John Ward, past President of the American Coal Council, became its chairman, it wasn’t to build a grassroots movement aimed at getting more Americans to turn over their yogurt containers to see what the recycling number is.
Full textThe congressional hearings so far on “sudden unintended acceleration” (SUA) in Toyota cars should have made two truths obvious to Washington policymakers. First, the strategy of counting on major manufacturers to voluntarily ensure that their consumer products are safe is unworkable in a competitive market, and second, safety agencies like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) need to walk softly but carry a very large stick.
Gone are the days when we could reasonably expect government technical experts to shadow manufacturers’ design engineers in order to coax them into taking care, even in a market with fewer than ten major manufacturers. But NHTSA still should have stepped out in front of the strong industry trend to rely on electronic controls or, as it is colloquially known, “driving by wire,” which is the likely source of SUA, at least in the Camry, and required all manufacturers to install an effective “brake to idle” feature across all models. According to the well-respected consulting firm Safety Research and Strategies, Inc., headed by former Center for Auto Safety staffer Sean Kane, this design, which is found in many other manufacturers’ cars operated by electronic throttles, brings the engine to idle if both the brake and the accelerator pedals are applied. Too many Toyota drivers have reported that no amount of braking would bring the car to a stop.
As important, now that the worst has happened and an unprecedented number of recalls are in the works, NHTSA must bring the full weight of its enforcement authority to bear on any malfeasance by Toyota. A decision by NHTSA to walk away without inflicting such punishment would encourage auto companies to return to business as usual. None of them want to be the next Toyota, but in the absence of a strong punitive response by the government, manufacturers have compelling incentives to continue to rely exclusively on internal corporate controls rather than disclosing problems to the government. And NHTSA, with a budget that is plainly insufficient to the task of ensuring vehicle safety, cannot protect the public without such full and timely disclosures.
Full textWater pollution / water law issues on the front pages of the Times and the Post on the same day?! Yep.
NYTimes: Rulings Restrict Clean Water Act, Hampering E.P.A.
WashPost: Rising with a bullet among top pollutants: Number Two
Full textThirty-eight years ago today, the dam holding back a massive coal-slurry impoundment (government-speak for a big pit filled with sludge) located in the middle of Buffalo Creek gave way, spilling 131 million gallons of black wastewater down the steep hills of West Virginia. The black waters eventually crested at 30 feet, washing away people, their houses, and their possessions. By the end of the catastrophe, 125 people were dead, 1,121 were injured, and more than 4,000 were left homeless.
Interviewed years later, Jack Spadaro, an engineer teaching at West Virginia’s School of Mines when the dam broke, told the West Virginia Gazette: “The thing that disgusted me was that people in the valley had been saying for years there was a problem there. They’d been evacuated many times before because of the fear of a dam failure.” Spadaro added, “I went through stacks and stacks of documents that went back into the ‘50s, and I think that, if somewhere along the way, there had been somebody within government willing to say, ‘Something really has to happen here,’ then those people would be alive and their families would be whole.”
When EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson took office in the first wave of Obama appointments, she decided to become that official. Correctly identifying the problem of negligent disposal of 140 million tons of coal ash, a type of mining waste even more toxic than the slurry that assaulted the West Virginians, as a first-order environmental justice issue—people living within a mile of a coal ash dump site are 30 percent more likely to be poor and minority than the mainstream population-- Jackson accelerated a 30-year effort to cope with the problem by EPA career staff. We think she produced a proposed rule that would designate the ash a hazardous waste if it is dumped in pits and exempting it if it is recycled safely by, for example, incorporating it into the concrete used to build roads. We can’t be sure, though, because before the rule was even published in the Federal Register for comment, it vanished into the bowels of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at OMB, the traditional killing ground for such efforts. We have no idea when it might emerge or what it will say when it does.
Full textAdd arsenic to the list of carcinogenic chemicals that will see delayed regulation from EPA as a result of OMB’s meddling. Last week, after almost seven years’ work, EPA released a draft assessment of the bladder and lung cancer risks posed by arsenic in drinking water. But the release of the final arsenic risk assessment is being delayed while EPA’s Science Advisory Board is asked to take yet another look at agency scientists’ work. As Jonathan Strong wrote in InsideEPA (sub. req'd) last week, the recursive review by SAB is “emboldening” activists who want to delay any potential new drinking water regulations.
Demanding external peer review of EPA scientists’ work on just about anything is a standard tactic industry uses to bide time before they have to shell out the money to clean up the messes they’ve made. Witness Sen. David Vitter’s hold on President Obama’s nominee for the head of EPA’s Office of Research and Development (the people responsible for IRIS assessments). Senator Vitter kept the hold on Dr. Anastas for months, until Administrator Jackson agreed to send the long-delayed formaldehyde IRIS assessment to the National Academy of Sciences for Review. That guaranteed Sen. Vitter’s constituents in the formaldehyde industry at least another 18 months of regulatory delay – more, if they can pull a few choice words from NAS’s eventual report and claim that they undermine the draft assessment.
A Senate hold on a presidential nominee isn’t the only way to ensure delay, though. Strong encouragement from people within the Executive Office of the President is another, and that’s just what the opponents of arsenic regulation got. In October 2008, EPA released an early draft of the arsenic IRIS reassessment for “interagency” review. OMB weighed in, as usual, with a set of comments that ask some highly scientific questions. As we’ve noted many times before in this space, OIRA’s small staff, with their expertise in economics and general regulatory policy and responsibility for overseeing the entire Executive Branch, should not be delving deep into the pre-regulatory science at one agency.
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