News Coverage
GAO 'High Risk' Listing For EPA Chemical Program May Boost TSCA Push
Published January 27, 2009
The Government Accountability Office's (GAO) decision to add EPA's chemical management program to its list of "high-risk" government programs may bolster efforts by public health activists to push lawmakers to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which has so far taken a back seat to other congressional priorities.
The GAO report, High-Risk Series: An Update, released Jan. 22, adds EPA's chemical risk assessment and management process to its 2009 list of programs at high risk for waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement. GAO also added "the outdated U.S. financial regulatory system" to the list.
The report says the agency needs to be granted more authority to get information crucial to assess the risks that chemicals pose to human health and the environment. "The agency also requires additional authority than currently provided in the [TSCA] to obtain health and safety information from the chemical industry and to shift more of the burden to chemical companies to demonstrate the safety of their products," the report says. The report is available on InsideEPA.com.
Informed sources say the GAO listing elevates the concern almost on a par with "the collapse of the financial industry," and expect the report will be a "wake-up call," strengthening the arguments of proponents of reforming TSCA, which regulates industrial chemical use.
The GAO report "does help make the case for TSCA reform" and the need for a bill like the Kid Safe Chemical Act, a TSCA-reform bill Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) has introduced twice, says a Senate aide. The bill -- which a "very strong" coalition of environmentalists and public health advocates are backing, according to a second source -- addresses GAO recommendations by shifting the burden to industry to demonstrate their products are safe, a change from current TSCA, which requires EPA to demonstrate chemicals are not safe (Risk Policy Report, May 27).
The Senate aide says that Lautenberg will reintroduce the legislation "sometime this year."
An environmental group advocating for Lautenberg's bill released a statement arguing that the GAO report has called for "fundamental reform" of TSCA, which the Environmental Working Group calls "the weakest of all major environmental laws."
"Every day, we find out something more about links between chemicals and serious diseases and conditions...," Richard Wiles, the group's executive director said in the statement. " But our government has almost no authority to protect people from even the most hazardous chemicals on the market. The GAO has delivered a strong message that this has to change."
While sources say the GAO report will help bolster the case for TSCA reform, key Democratic lawmakers have so far signaled they are unlikely to move TSCA legislation, though they may hold hearings and conduct other oversight on the issue.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Senate environment committee, said last month that she did not expect new TSCA and other environmental legislation this Congress but rather new efforts to strictly enforce existing laws. "It's not a question of passing new landmark laws," Boxer told the Washington Post. "It's a matter of getting these agencies back in gear. We have great tools, but they have not been functioning. . . . It's like the EPA has been asleep for eight years."
Sources say Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has also signaled that reforming TSCA will not be one of his priorities, which include climate change, energy, health care and other issues.
Although climate change and energy concerns are considered the foremost environmental issues, an informed source says toxics need to be addressed too, and hopes that Congress can "chew gum and walk at the same time."
GAO's report also says that EPA's key hazard assessment program, the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) database, containing assessments of more than 500 toxic chemicals, "is at serious risk of becoming obsolete because EPA has been unable to keep its existing assessments current or to complete assessments of important chemicals of concern." The IRIS database and EPA's chemical management are one of three programs added to the high-risk list this year.
An EPA spokeswoman says the agency "will review the report and will respond accordingly."
The finding is based on an investigation of IRIS that GAO completed last spring, and presented at several congressional hearings. Democrats focused on the controversial process EPA published last April for producing the IRIS assessments, which critics say takes too long and allows the White House and other agencies too much access.
In a Jan. 22 statement accompanying the report, Acting U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro says, "I am hopeful that the inclusion of these issues will lead to greater scrutiny and spur needed reforms."
