News Coverage
Woolsey seeks chemical ban
Bill would phase out and replace flame retardants
Published April 2, 2004
Legislation introduced yesterday by U.S. Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, and two other representatives would phase out nationwide flame retardants linked to neurological impairment and reproductive damage.
The Toxic Flame Retardant Prohibition Act would ban two types of polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, two years after the enactment of the legislation. The two types, Penta and Octa, recently were banned in California in a law penned by Assemblywoman Wilma Chan, D-Oakland. While Woolsey was introducing her bill in Washington, Chan and the Environmental Working Group announced a public education campaign warning East Bay residents about the dangers of PBDEs in San Francisco Bay fish. The chemicals are widely used in flame retardants found in common products including upholstered furniture, mattresses, computers and other electronic equipment. Environment California, sponsors of the California legislation, said the flame retardants escape from consumer products into air and water and have been found in household dust and in the food supply. The organization said the chemicals accumulate in the human body, pass from a mother to a developing fetus and have been found in human breast milk. Researchers say the chemicals have been linked to thyroid hormone dysfunction, disruption of brain development in fetuses and infant children and possibly cancer. Woolsey, who joined Rep. Hilda Solis, D-El Monte, and Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., as sponsors of the act, said exposure to PBDEs in the Bay Area isgrowing at an alarming rate. "Researchers discovered last year that San Francisco Bay Area women have three to 10 times greater amounts of PBDEs in their breast tissue than either Japanese or European women," Woolsey said.Woolsey said the Environmental Working Group compared fish caught in San Francisco Bay in 2002 to fish caught there in 1997.
"The study concluded that the levels of PBDEs in two species of fish had doubled over a three- to four-year period. Researchers have found that levels of PBDEs in bay harbor seals were 100 times higher in 1998 than they were 10 years earlier," Woolsey said.
"We can no longer ignore these alarming increases. In the Bay Area, we now know that PBDEs are a part of our ecosystem whether we like it or not," she said.
Yana Kucher, environmental health advocate for Environment California, said many companies are using alternatives that protect people from fire but are not linked to negative health effects.
"We think the bill does achieve some goals," said Peter O'Toole, a spokesman for the Bromine Scientific and Environmental Forum, an industry group representing companies that manufacture PBDEs. "But we are concerned about some unintended consequences, such as a gap in fire safety."
Penta, Octa and Deca are three main chemical formulations of PBDEs and Deca is suspected of breaking down into components of Penta and Octa.
The legislation requires labeling of products containing any of the three PBDE products within a year of the legislation's enactment.
In addition to the California law, laws in Maine and Washington require that Penta and Octa PBDEs be phased out by 2008.