Environmental Protection Agency
egrossman | December 17, 2014As last week’s Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing made abundantly clear, communities throughout the United States are at ongoing risk from potentially disastrous incidents involving hazardous chemicals. A new Congressional Research Service report released concurrently by Senator Edward J. Markey (D-MA), details how thousands of facilities across the country that store and use hazardous chemicals are located in communities, putting millions of Americans at risk. Yet this list of facilities, Senator Markey’s office points out, may not be complete. The report analyzes US…
kkrisberg | December 17, 2014When compared with gasoline-powered cars, vehicles fueled with electricity from renewable sources could cut air pollution-related deaths by 70 percent, according to a new study, which noted that air pollution is the country’s greatest environmental health threat.
Published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study’s researchers examined the impact of various vehicle energy sources on the concentrations of two types of air pollutants known to affect human health: particulate matter and ground-level ozone. Previous research has found that air pollution causes…
cmonforton | November 21, 2014Health and safety hazards encountered by custodians, palm tree workers, day laborers, nurses, and bakery workers are just some of the dozens of different occupations examined in research presented at this year’s annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA). The association’s Occupational Health and Safety Section marked its 100th anniversary and members designed the first phase of an electronic timeline to memorialize key events in the Section’s history. A special scientific session explored the OHS Section’s history, starting with its founding co-chairs George Kober, MD…
egrossman | November 19, 2014Often unwatched by all but policy-wonks yet key to determining policies put forth by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), are the EPA’s Scientific Advisory Boards. These boards consult with the EPA on the science that influences regulations, particularly on individual chemicals – science that’s used to protect the public from chemical hazards. On Tuesday the House passed a bill, the EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act of 2013 or H.R. 1422, that would change how the EPA selects Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) members. The White House, in a statement from the Office of Management and…
egrossman | October 28, 2014Despite substantial public opposition and the “grave concerns” of about 50 members of Congress and significant unanswered questions about human and environmental health impacts, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved a new herbicide called Enlist Duo for use on genetically engineered corn and soybeans in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin. EPA, which says it has approved Enlist Duo “to manage the problem of resistant weeds” is now considering approving Enlist Duo for use in ten more states: Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi,…
egrossman | September 8, 2014It may come as a surprise to those not familiar with the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) – the primary law that regulates chemicals used in the US that go into products other than cosmetics, drugs and pesticides – to learn that about 15,000 chemicals on the TSCA inventory have their identities claimed as trade secrets. According to an analysis included in the petition filed with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on August 21st by Earthjustice and five other non-profits, approximately 62.5 percent of the 24,000 chemicals added to the TSCA inventory since 1982 cannot be “…
egrossman | August 20, 2014If the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) give their approval to a new herbicide called Enlist Duo and to corn and soybean seeds genetically engineered (GE) to resist that chemical, the United States could see a significant increase in what is already one of the country’s most widely used herbicides. Yet while the EPA seems poised to approve Enlist Duo and USDA, the GE seeds, about 50 members of Congress have written to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack expressing their “grave concerns” about “the multiple…
cmonforton | July 24, 2014The Obama Administration insists it is more transparent than its predecessors. The President’s people repeat the claim and are quick to dismiss assertions to the contrary. Reporters---whose business is shining a light on government---see things differently. Their complaints about the Obama Administration’s secrecy is not new, but they were elevated earlier this month in a letter sent to the White House. A group of 38 journalism and open government organizations accused the Obama Administration of
“politically driven suppression of news and information about federal agencies.”
They asserted…
egrossman | July 14, 2014What do these places have in common: Camp Lejeune in North Carolina; Mountain View, California, where Google headquarters are located; Endicott, NY – the birthplace of IBM; and 389 Superfund sites in at least 48 states plus Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands? All are contaminated by trichloroethylene (TCE), a volatile organic compound classified as a carcinogen that’s been widely used as a solvent and degreaser in large-scale industrial processes, small commercial shops and in some products used by individual consumers. On June 25th, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its…
egrossman | June 25, 2014When a widely used chemical is identified as an environmental health hazard and targeted for phase-out and elimination, among the most challenging questions for those involved with using and making such a chemical are: What to use instead? and Will the replacement be safe? The US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) report identifying alternatives to the flame retardant hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) illustrates how difficult those questions can be to answer. It also highlights how important it is to consider the entire life-cycle of finished products when looking for hazardous chemical…
egrossman | June 12, 2014Following the deadly April 17, 2013 explosion at the West, Texas West Fertilizer Company plant that killed fifteen people and injured hundreds – and a series of other catastrophic incidents involving hazardous materials – President Obama issued Executive Order 13650. It directed federal agencies to improve the safety and security of chemical facilities to reduce risks to workers, communities and first responders. To do so it established a working group, led by the Department of Labor, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Homeland Security, that would report back to the…
egrossman | May 14, 2014In 2012, the most recent year for which US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) figures are available, 375 people died on the job in California – an average occupational fatality rate of more than one person every day. At the same time, research by Worksafe and other California labor advocates shows that while California’s workforce has grown by about 22 percent in the last 20 years, the number of safety inspectors for the 17 million people employed in the state’s 1.34 million workplaces has decreased by about 11 percent. This leaves California – which has the largest workforce of any US state…
kkrisberg | May 6, 2014The Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Fair Food Program has garnered praise from the White House to the United Nations for its innovative strategies to improve working conditions among farmworkers in Florida. The program, which began in 2010, works by getting big buyers to agree to only purchase tomatoes from farms that adhere to worker protection rules and ensure that workers are educated on their rights and responsibilities. Businesses that have signed on include Taco Bell, Chipotle and, recently, Wal-Mart, which according to a New York Times article chronicling progress on Florida farms,…
egrossman | March 11, 2014“The United States is facing an industrial chemical safety crisis,” Chemical Safety Board Chairperson Rafael Moure-Eraso told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on March 6th. He spoke at hearing held to discuss President Obama’s August 2013 Executive Order on chemical facility safety, which Obama issued following the catastrophic incidents at the West, Texas fertilizer plant and Louisiana petrochemical facilities. In the wake of the Freedom Industries chemical release in West Virginia, improving the nation’s chemical safety has taken on a new urgency. Yet while the Senate…
egrossman | March 3, 2014“For us it’s personal,” said Jeannie Economos, Farmworker Association of Florida Pesticide Safety and Environmental Health Project Coordinator. “It’s a daily issue for us. Every day with a weaker protection standard is another day a worker is exposed to pesticides,” she said.
On February 20th , the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced proposed revisions to its Worker Protection Standard for agricultural pesticides, the first since the existing standard was established in 1992 – and the second proposed update to the standard since its introduction in 1974. EPA has called the…
egrossman | February 25, 2014On January 9, 2014 a leak was reported at Freedom Industries’ storage tanks on the banks of the Elk River just upstream of a water treatment plant that services tap water for about 300,000 residents in and around Charleston, West Virginia. The resulting release of at least 10,000 gallons of toxic chemicals used to clean coal contaminated the community’s water supply, making it unfit for use. More than a month later, it remains unclear if this water is truly safe to drink and what the health consequences of exposure to these chemicals may be.
But this is far from the only disastrous toxic…
Let's not call it a "spill," thousands of gallons of MCHM in water supply of 300,000 West Virginians
cmonforton | January 13, 2014When a glass of milk tips over, that's a spill. When thousands of gallons of a chemical used to separate coal from rock, flows into the source water of 300,000 West Virginia residents, it is not a spill, it's a public health emergency.
Headlines from this weekend's Charleston (WV) Gazette describe the story on the ground:
"State ignored plan for tougher chemical oversight" (here)
"Wasn't there a plan?" (here)
"What is 'Crude MCHM'? Few know" (here)
"Crisis pulls back curtain on water threats" (here)
"Water being given out in many locations, updated list" (here)
"Without water, soup kitchens…
cmonforton | September 12, 2013The Environmental Defense Fund and the Environmental Working Group (EWG) both reported last week (here, here) on the Obama Administration’s decision to withdraw two actions being proposed under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Chemical manufacturers strongly opposed the measures. Now, advocates of environmental protection, public health and chemical right-to-know really are exasperated with the sheepish manner the Obama Administration behaves when pressed by powerful interests.
“It seems like a lifetime ago that the Obama Administration came to power and immediately ramped up the…
cmonforton | August 1, 2013Finally! After far too much hullabaloo about the cost of regulations, there was a U.S. Senate hearing today on why public health regulations are important, and how delays by Congress and the Administration have serious negative consequences for people's lives. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called the hearing entitled "Justice Delayed: The Human Cost of Regulatory Paralysis," the first one conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee's newly created Subcommittee on Oversight, Federal Rights and Agency Action. The witnesses included a parent-turned advocate for automobile safety, AFL-CIO…
egrossman | July 24, 2013On July 15 and 16, about two dozen farmworkers paid an unprecedented visit to Capitol Hill to ask Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the White House to support increased protection from exposure to pesticides. Farmworkers have lobbied Congress before, but this is the first time such a visit focused entirely on pesticide exposure issues, explained Farmworker Justice director of occupational and environmental health, Virginia Ruiz. Farmworkers are asking Congress to support strengthening the EPA’s Worker Protection Standard for pesticides, a regulation that has not been…