ENS: Chemical Industry Must Prove Safety Under Lautenberg Bill

Environment News Service:
Published April 16, 2010

WASHINGTON, DC, April 15, 2010 (ENS) - Legislation to require safety testing of all industrial chemicals, which puts the burden on industry to prove that chemicals are safe in order stay on the market, was introduced in both houses of Congress today. Introducing his new bill, U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, called the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 now in force, "an antiquated law that in its current state, leaves Americans at risk of exposure to toxic chemicals." Lautenberg, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health, says his bill, the Safe Chemicals Act of 2010, will give the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency more power to regulate the use of dangerous chemicals. It requires manufacturers to submit information proving the safety of every chemical in production and any new chemical seeking to enter the market. Under the current law, the EPA can only call for safety testing after evidence surfaces demonstrating a chemical is dangerous. As a result, EPA has been able to require testing for just 200 of the more than 80,000 chemicals currently registered in the United States and has been able to ban only five dangerous substances. In 2009, the Government Accountability Office, which is the investigative arm of Congress, named the Toxic Substances Control Act a "high-risk" priority and one of the areas most in need of broad reform. "With virtually no rules governing the safety of chemicals," says Richard Wiles of the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, "American babies are born pre-polluted, their bodies laced with as many as 300 industrial compounds, pollutants, plastics, pesticides and other substances that threaten public health." Read the entire article here: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2010/2010-04-15-091.html