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Tucson Region

TOXINS FILL OUR HOMES: A STAR INVESTIGATION

How the U.S. government regulates chemicals

By Tony Davis
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 12.01.2007
About 82,000 chemicals exist in this country, more than 700 new ones are introduced each year, and thousands are used in the home. Here are some questions and answers about how government regulates them:
Q. Who tests and regulates the safety of the products used to build and clean my home?
A. The federal Clean Air Act that regulates outdoor air pollution has no control over what goes on inside your home. The Environmental Protection Agency has the job of regulating the chemicals that could muck up your indoor air. They're covered by the federal Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976.
Q. How heavy a hand does the EPA wave over the safety of these products?
A. Not very, say watchdogs in federal government and academia. Led by the congressional watchdog Government Accountability Office, they say the law is inadequate and ties the EPA's hands in enforcing it.
Q. I buy cleaners and wood panels and varnishes and paints, and they don't even tell me what's in them. Why not?
A. The law authorizes the EPA to require labeling only when it finds the chemical poses or may pose an unreasonable risk or is produced in large amounts and could be released in large quantities. Companies must tell the EPA what's in their chemicals but the EPA must keep most of the information confidential to protect trade secrets.
Q. How often does the EPA require labeling?
A. Very rarely, usually for high-profile toxins such as asbestos, chromium and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which were used in electrical transformers until outlawed.
Q. Then why do beauty and food items list their ingredients?
A. That's required under a different law, the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1954. Experts at the EPA and the environmental group Environmental Defense say the chemical act isn't as tough on labeling because it regulates chemicals, not consumer products. The food and drug law regulates products.
Q. What other problems does the federal government have in regulating chemicals?
A. In reports from the 1990s and from 2005, the Government Accountability Office fingers the "burden of proof" rule. Before the EPA can require companies to test their chemicals, it must prove they pose unreasonable risks and could expose the public in large amounts.
Q. What's been the result?
A. The EPA has required testing of fewer than 200 chemicals in existence as of 1976, and instead used computer models to try to predict how chemicals will behave. It has regulated or banned only five existing chemicals, although it has taken action to reduce risks of more than 3,500 out of 32,000 new chemicals that companies have submitted for the agency's review. Overall, GAO says EPA lacks enough data to ensure that potential health risks of new chemicals are identified.
Q. What does industry say?
A. The American Chemistry Council, a trade group, says many concerns about the law are overstated. It says that no more than 9,000 chemicals are produced or imported in amounts of more than 10,000 pounds annually. The remaining 73,000 present little or no health risk, the group says. Manufacturers have submitted more than 50,000 health and safety studies to the EPA and have supplied test data covering more than 95 percent of all chemicals in commerce.
Q. Is there a better way?
A. Environmentalists and some researchers like the new REACH policy just approved by the European Union, which regulates issues of common interest for 27 European countries and 490 million people. Over there, the burden of proof is on chemical companies to show that a product is safe.
Q. Is there a downside?
A. The chemistry council has many concerns about that policy: that it will make Europe less competitive, will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and will discriminate against imported chemicals, in violation of international trade agreements.
Q. What's being done to increase oversight in this country?
A. The EPA has spent the last nine years coaxing companies to voluntarily turn over information about 2,500 high-volume chemicals in heavy use. So far, companies have submitted only 40 percent of the information they were supposed to by now, says a study done by Environmental Defense. The U.S. also has signed an agreement with Canada and Mexico to determine the safety of 9,000 heavily used chemicals and take needed action on them by 2012.
Q. With so little agreement over what's safe and what's not, is more protection of consumers even possible?
A. In 2005, the Kid Safe Chemicals Act was introduced in Congress, to amend the 1976 toxic substances law to require chemical manufacturers to certify the safety of new chemicals. The bill died without a hearing, but its sponsors are considering reintroducing it. It could fare better, because Democrats have since taken control of Congress.
Q. Would government inspectors come snooping into my house for indoor air pollution?
A. Almost certainly not. To the feds, it is too hot to handle, said Charles Weschler, an adjunct professor of environmental and occupational medicine at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. "People say ... don't tell me what to do in my home."
Q. How the heck do I know whom to believe?
A. Your best bet is to trust not people but evidence. Peer-reviewed research on chemicals trumps a position paper, and three studies reaching the same conclusion beat one.
Q: I haven't time to study the studies and figure out people's motives. What am I left with?
A: You can take steps, some fairly easy, to minimize your risks at home. Read about them in Sunday's Arizona Daily Star.
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