Bipartisan toxic substances reform is welcome change

Pollution tile
Pollution tile
photo Pollution tile

The New York Times reported last week that both houses of Congress are moving to reform what the paper called "the notoriously weak" Toxic Substances Control Act.

The law, passed in 1976, provides the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with authority to require reporting, record-keeping and testing requirements, along with restrictions on certain chemical substances in order to ensure the safety of chemicals used in consumer and industrial products.

The reform is said to have strong bipartisan support and is likely to provide the first significant change to the law since it was enacted nearly four decades ago. Yet while the changes offer a substantial improvement, they will not provide what we in this country need most: quicker evaluations of the tens of thousands of chemicals currently in use that have never been tested for safety but already are cause for concern.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved a bipartisan reform bill in late April despite objections by Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat. Boxer has penned a stronger bill, but it has gained no Republican support.

The bill that has gained support is sponsored by Tom Udall, D-N.M, and David Vitter, R-La, and it would allow the needed EPA chemical safety assessments to consider only the health and safety, not the cost or burden for manufacturers, as current law requires. It is that manufacturers' "burden" that seems to have been a strong delaying downfall of the existing law.

According to the New York Times, the proposed reform also would impose a new fee on chemical companies to bear more of the cost of evaluating and regulating chemicals and send $18 million in those fees straight to the EPA for enforcement, rather than to the Treasury.

The bill also would increase enforcement manpower by allowing states to use their own employees to police the chemical industry, as well as mandate special protections for pregnant women, infants, the elderly and chemical workers.

Lest anyone think this isn't needed, consider the enormous volume of chemicals produced and handled in every U.S. community every day.

A cousin law of the Toxic Substances Control Act is the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, which established a mandate for the Toxics Release Inventory -- a database of mandatory industry reporting that supports and promotes emergency planning. The database is open to the public and provides communities with information about releases of 650 toxic chemicals in our states, counties, cities and neighborhoods.

The inventory provides us with a glimpse of permitted and accidental chemical spills and releases -- what most of us call industrial pollution, albeit legalized with state and local permits.

But beyond the releases, a deep dive into the inventory also allows the public and first responders to know how much of each specific toxic chemical is used and stored onsite at facilities such as BASF on Polymer Drive in Chattanooga or Chattem Chemicals on St. Elmo Ave., or Volkswagen in Bonny Oaks. A forewarned community is forearmed in the event of an unplanned event.

In March, EPA said toxic chemical pollution releases to air, water, sewers and landfills reported in the inventory by Hamilton County industries in 2013 (the most recent year tallied) totaled 674,412 pounds.

If you think laws like these -- no matter how lax or delayed -- don't do some good, consider our historical Toxics Release Inventory numbers:

Last year, local industries reported releases totaling 818,267 pounds of toxic chemicals, according to EPA's TRI Explorer webpage.

In 1989, however, the first year data from the Toxics Release Inventory was unveiled, just under 50 Hamilton County facilities reported chemical pollution releases to air, water, sewers and landfills nearly totaling a whopping 10 million pounds.

We've come a long way. We still have far to go.

Tweaking the laws for safety and for public understanding, one by one, can help us.

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