December 16, 2009
CIEL joined 45 environmental, health, and justice groups today who wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson seeking their support for congressional action on toxic chemicals.
The letter asks these senior administration officials to express their support for “strong legislation that will protect all Americans from dangerous chemicals, including those known as persistent organic pollutants [POPs], and that will enable the United States to be an international leader in eliminating the global threat that these chemicals pose.” The letter notes that “achieving progress abroad goes hand-in-hand with America’s ability to take decisive action at home.”
The Obama administration has already announced its support for a legislative overhaul of the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), a federal law that has failed to protect public health or the environment from dangerous industrial chemicals used in countless products.
On December 3, 2009 Senator Frank Lautenberg (NJ) announced his intention to introduce a bill that would significantly reform TSCA.
Persistent, bioaccumulative toxins, or PBTs, build up in the environment and are found in the blood of Americans everywhere, even in newborn babies.
Over 168 nations are cooperating under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants to eliminate PBTs that threaten global health and the environment. The United States signed the POPs treaty in 2001. However, the United States cannot ratify it until Congress makes necessary changes to TSCA and a corresponding law on pesticides.
Resources:
- December 16 NGO letter to Secretary of State Clinton and EPA Administrator Jackson
- Obama Administration’s Essential Principles for Reform of Chemicals Management Legislation:
- Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)