CPR Scholar Tom McGarity to Testify at Senate Hearing on Toxic Chemical Reform

Today, CPR Scholar Tom McGarity is scheduled to testify at a Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works Hearing entitled, "Strengthening Public Health Protections by Addressing Toxic Chemical Threats." His testimony can be found in full here. Below is a blog by McGarity which summarizes his testimony. The Chemical Safety Improvement Act: The Wrong Way to Fix a Broken Federal Statute We live in an era in which human health and the environment are threatened by toxic chemicals that have not been adequately tested and that are subject to a federal regulatory regime that is badly broken. The fact that we do not often read about disease outbreaks caused by toxic chemicals in the newspapers probably stems from the fact that we know so very little about the risks posed by the thousands of synthetic chemicals that we encounter on a daily basis. We are only beginning to learn of the adverse health effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals and various flame-retardants. The impacts of many ubiquitous chemicals on ecosystems are largely unknown. We know, for example, that the Potomac River contains high levels of endocrine disrupting chemicals and that there is an unusually high incidence of "intersex" (male fish exhibiting female characteristics) in smallmouth bass in the river. At the same time, people continue to be e exposed to some chemicals, like the carcinogen formaldehyde, that have well-known adverse effects on human health. There is a federal law in place that is supposed to require manufacturers of chemical substances to conduct adequate toxicity testing and to empower the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban, phase-out, label, or otherwise regulate chemicals that pose unacceptable risks to human health or the environment. That statute is the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA). But that statute is severely broken. Congress is considering a bill, referred to as the Chemical Safety Improvement Act, that purports to fix TSCA's problems. Unfortunately, that bill is not likely to be as effective as its supporters think, and it contains two provisions that will make matters affirmatively worse.