photo by Lindsay Talley At a packed hearing before a key House subcommittee, Environmental Working Group President and co-founder Ken Cook called on Congress yesterday (July 29) to pass tough new legislation to repair a “broken toxic chemicals policy” that is currently so weak “the American public...

Members of a powerful Senate Appropriations subcommittee said Thursday (July 15) that the lack of research on BP’s use of vast quantities of dispersants to break up the oil fouling the Gulf of Mexico leaves open the possibility that the chemicals could make the disaster worse, not better. In an unusual...

*so long as they don’t have to show anything By Leeann Brown, Press Associate, and Nils Bruzelius, Executive Editor Who says you can never find a cop when you need one? When Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s CNN film crew was in Mossville, Louisiana, recently filming footage of 14 chemical plants that local...

For anyone still in doubt about the need to tighten up the nation’s sad-sack system for protecting the public from hazardous chemicals, last week’s report (May 7) of the President’s Cancer Panel should provide serious food for thought. In a sharp break from the standard line of the American Cancer...

You wouldn’t give your child an adult dose of Tylenol. You wouldn’t strap an infant into the front seat of your car. The government won’t let a baby be exposed to the same amount of pesticide a grownup can tolerate. But when it comes to regulating chemicals in children’s toys, bedding or baby...

Ever keep putting off the worst things on your to-do list? Like dusting before tackling the bathrooms, delaying calling the dentist to set up your next appointment, puttering around in the garden before balancing your checkbook as your kids jump on the trampoline — before making their beds? Under...

Under the new legislation pending in Congress to reform the nation’s ineffectual chemicals regulation law, it would be easy to paralyze the Environmental Protection Agency under mountains of data — if it’s not done right. The discussion draft circulated by the House Energy and Commerce Committee,...

Is it possible that Congress would pass a bill allowing new chemicals on the market that might be even less safe than the ones we have now, to be used in products we buy and use everyday – even in children’s products? Unfortunately, that’s exactly what the newly released House discussion draft...

Every time there’s a debate over efforts to protect people from environmental health dangers, the folks facing new regulatory demands point out in great detail what it will cost in lost profits, higher prices to consumers and reduced productivity. Those arguments deserve to be weighed in the balance,...

After nearly 35 years with basically no information on just about any chemical, is it possible to have too much “minimal” information?  Sounds hard to imagine, but some apparently think so. Here’s the issue. Under the newly-released House draft of a chemical regulation reform bill, EPA would...