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Greens sue EPA over toxic chemical rules.
Several environmental groups sued the EPA on Monday over rules, published in July, that determine which uses of chemicals the agency will assess before allowing the chemicals to be sold on the open market.
Several environmental groups are challenging new chemical safety regulations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The groups sued the EPA on Monday over rules, published in July, that determine which uses of chemicals the agency will assess before allowing the chemicals to be sold on the open market.
A chemical safety law passed last year requires the EPA to update several internal procedures related to the risk evaluation process for toxic chemicals.
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But in their lawsuit Monday, the groups said the agency watered down the rules and weakened the chemical review process compared to the proposed regulations issued by the Obama administration.
“After Congress took bipartisan action to make desperately needed updates to our chemical safety laws, the Trump administration has turned back the clock, leaving families and workers at risk,” said Eve Gartner, an attorney at Earthjustice, which filed the lawsuit in federal court on Monday.
Gartner said the rules “will leave children, communities and workers vulnerable to dangerous chemicals. This lawsuit is about one thing: holding the Trump EPA to the letter of the law and ensuring it fulfills its mandate to protect the public.”
One of the rules in question sets criteria to determine the highest-priority chemicals for the EPA to evaluate. The other establishes which uses of a chemical regulators will consider for health and safety risks during the review process.
The groups argue the new rules provide “loopholes” for chemical manufacturers.
But the EPA said in June the rules “clearly [define] important scientific terms to ensure transparency and confidence in the risk evaluation process,” and ensure “that the agency’s resources are focused on those uses that may pose the greatest risk.”
TAGS ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT
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New Congress on track to block long-sought workplace and public health protections.
Occupational and public health protective policies finalized by the Obama administration are now jeopardized by antiregulatory legislation already passed by the 115th Congress.
BY ELIZABETH GROSSMAN
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Not surprisingly, the historically pro-big business U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports antiregulatory legislation, as does the American Chemistry Council and National Association of Manufacturers. (Craig Bennett/ Flickr)
An estimated 10,000 Americans die from asbestos-caused diseases each year, a figure that’s considered conservative. Asbestos is no longer mined in the United States but it still exists in products here, perpetuating exposure, especially for workers in construction and other heavy industries. In June 2016, after years of debate, the country’s major chemical regulation law was updated for the first time in 40 years, removing a major obstacle to banning asbestos.
Exposure to beryllium, a metal used in aerospace, defense, and communications industry manufacturing, to which about 62,000 U.S. workers are exposed annually, can cause a severe, chronic lung disease. On January 6, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) issued a rule—more than 15 years in the making—that dramatically lowers allowable workplace exposure to beryllium. OSHA says this will prevent 94 premature deaths and prevent 46 new cases of beryllium-related disease per year.
On April 17, 2013, an explosion and fire at the West Fertilizer Company plant in West, Texas, killed 15 people and injured hundreds. In late December—after a four-year process involving public, business, governments and non-profit input—the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a rule designed to prevent such accidents, improve community response to and preparedness for such disasters.
Those three examples are among the occupational and public health protective policies finalized by the Obama administration now jeopardized by antiregulatory legislation already passed by the 115th Congress. It remains to be seen if this legislation will become law and actually used. But, says University of Texas School of Law professor Thomas McGarity, the likely outcome is “that this will make people sick and unsafe.”
“Landscape is grim as it is”
In addition to having the ability to pass antiregulatory legislation, Congress has at its disposal the Congressional Review Act (CRA). Passed in 1996 by the Newt Gingrich-led House, it allows Congress to overturn a regulation passed during the last 60 legislative working days of an outgoing administration. What’s more, it prevents the creation of a substantially similar regulation. It’s only been used once, in 2001, to overturn the ergonomics regulation passed by OSHA under President Bill Clinton.
Add to this the Midnight Rules Relief Act, passed by the House on January 4. It amends the CRA, allowing Congress to overturn multiple regulations promulgated during the previous administration’s last six months, rather than individually as the CRA requires. “This allows the House to pick and choose rules that industry doesn’t like and do it all at once,” McGarity explains.
Also already passed by the House is the Regulatory Accountability Act. It includes a provision that could threaten the change made to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) eliminating the provision that prevented the EPA from banning asbestos. As Natural Resources Defense Council director of government affairs, David Goldston explains, “This bill has a provision that says notwithstanding any other provision of law, costs and benefits have to be considered when writing a rule.” Goldston calls this phrase “dangerous,” as it means putting economic costs to industry ahead of costs to human health as TSCA previously required—a requirement the revised bill eliminated.
And, as if these laws weren’t enough to threaten existing regulations, there’s the REINS Act (Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny Act), also already passed by the House. This law essentially says that an agency rule can’t go into effect unless Congress approves it. Or, as University of Maryland Carey School of Law professor Rena Steinzor explained in the American Prospect, “In a drastic power grab, the House has approved a measure that would strip executive agencies of the authority to issue significant new regulations.”
“If the REINS Act becomes law, then Congressional inaction will supersede previous Congressional action on fundamental bedrock popular health, safety and environmental protection laws,” says Public Citizen regulatory policy advocate Amit Narang.
He also points out that if the administration of Donald Trump declines to defend regulations now under legal challenge, they could also be undone. Among the rules now being challenged is OSHA’s long sought updated restriction on occupational silica exposure.
“The landscape is grim as it is,” says Emily Gardner, worker health and safety advocate at the non-profit citizens’ rights advocacy group Public Citizen, referring to OSHA’s limited resources. “There are nearly 5,000 workers dying on the job every year and OSHA’s not able to respond to threats as they’re happening.” Now, she says, “I’m looking at a Congress that would nearly paralyze rulemaking.”
“Designed to smash the system not reform it”
These laws effectively knock the foundation out from under how agencies like OSHA, the Department of Labor and EPA go about creating the network of regulations needed to implement the intent of laws that protect workplace and public health.
“This is designed to smash the system not reform it,” says Goldston of this antiregulatory legislation.
Not surprisingly, the historically pro-big business U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports antiregulatory legislation, as does the American Chemistry Council and National Association of Manufacturers. On the other hand, it’s opposed by American Sustainable Business Council, which represents more than 250,000 business owners and says the regulations these laws aim to undo are needed to support healthy, thriving workplaces and the economy.
Apart from the CRA, all of this legislation still needs to pass the Senate and be signed by the president to become law. But with a Republicans in the majority and Trump in the White House, vetoes seem highly unlikely.
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The canary in Donald Trump’s literal coal mine.
The fate of the Lautenberg Act will be an early sign of the prospects for any cooperation in the near future of American environmental politics. Call it the canary in the coal-fired power plant.
Evan Hepler-Smith is a historian of modern science and technology and Ziff Environmental Fellow at the Harvard University Center for the Environment
Watch this act to see how environmental policy will fare
This election season, the central concern of American environmental politics has been the future of the country’s climate and energy policies. Political divisions over coal, climate change and government regulation are likely to intensify with Donald Trump’s nomination of Scott Pruitt, who has rejected the scientific consensus that human actions are responsible for climate change, to head the Environmental Protection Agency—the very agency that Pruitt, as Oklahoma’s attorney general, has sued to prevent it from enforcing regulations. The nominations of Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State and former Texas Governor Rick Perry as Secretary of Energy will likely add fuel to the fire.
However, at least one environmental policy enjoys strong bipartisan support, as well as the endorsement of both the chemical industry and environmental and public-health advocacy groups: the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act. The fate of the Lautenberg Act will be an early sign of the prospects for any cooperation in the near future of American environmental politics. Call it the canary in the coal-fired power plant.
On Nov. 30, 10 senators wrote to Vice President-elect Mike Pence, urging the incoming administration to prioritize the implementation of this new law. The letter’s signatories include such unlikely allies as Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey and Republican James Inhofe from Pruitt’s home state of Oklahoma. Inhofe has called the link between human activities and global warming “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” and Markey once suggested that global warming deniers start their own country on an iceberg. But they are united in support for the robust implementation of this chemical safety law.
From the water crisis in Flint, Mich., to the chemical spill that left hundreds of thousands of West Virginians without water in January 2014, chemical hazards affect the health and well-being of millions of Americans. The Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act is a revision of the Toxic Substances Control Act, one of the principal statutes by which the EPA assesses and controls such hazards.
The original Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) provides a cautionary tale in how the achievements of legislative compromise can break down in their implementation. Passed in 1976 in the waning days of the Ford administration, the act was to extend an umbrella of safety over the chemicals in use in America that were not already addressed by clean air, clean water and occupational health laws. The EPA had barely finished developing the apparatus to enforce the law when the Reagan administration de-prioritized and de-funded it. In one signature case, during the late 1980s, the EPA sought to phase out the use of asbestos in the U.S. under the provisions of TSCA, but a federal court ruled that the asbestos ban did not constitute the “least burdensome” mechanism of enforcement mandated by the law.
After the asbestos ban foundered, environmental and public health advocates shifted their political efforts to the states. State legislatures took action, creating a patchwork of chemical regulatory regimes across the U.S. The resulting situation was not especially satisfying to anybody. EPA scientists and administrators chafed against the limitations of TSCA, environmental and public health advocates were appalled at lax federal oversight, and corporations found state-by-state chemical regulations cumbersome and expensive.
Around 2010, a combination of current and former EPA scientists, consumer health advocates, environmental groups, chemical industry representatives and legislators from both parties (especially the late New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg, for whom the final bill was named) began pushing for reform. Over years of negotiations, stakeholders worked out compromises to prioritize and fund the evaluation of new chemicals and potentially hazardous existing ones, to allow safety to outweigh economic impact when warranted, to protect vulnerable populations and to smooth out the regulatory landscape by permitting federal safety determinations, once completed, to preempt state laws. In the summer of 2016, the Lautenberg Act passed Congress by overwhelming majorities and was signed into law.
On Nov. 29, the EPA issued a list of the first 10 “high-priority” chemicals for expedited safety assessments under the Lautenberg Act (the list includes asbestos), which sparked the letter from Inhofe, Markey and their Senate colleagues.
How the Trump administration and its new EPA leadership respond to this call has serious consequences for the protection of the environment and public health, for public confidence in government and for providing private industry with a clear road map of chemical hazard and regulations, which could incentivize firms to develop and use safer alternatives.
The Lautenberg Act could also provide a roadmap for environmental politics in the near future. Since the election, many observers have predicted a shift away from federal regulatory efforts towards state and local government action. In the case of the Lautenberg Act, state-level lawmaking catalyzed the emergence of a bipartisan coalition that developed legislation on the national level.
Yet the law’s future is uncertain. While President-elect Trump has called attention to political and regulatory failures in Flint, he has also expressed skepticism regarding certain generally recognized chemical hazards, including asbestos. In Oklahoma, Pruitt fought EPA regulations that targeted emissions of mercury and other toxins. If the bipartisan canary of the Lautenberg Act ends up expiring, the near-term prospects for environmental protection and environmental politics in America would appear dim indeed.
TIME Ideas hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.
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EPA aims to finish climate rules; Decisions fall to Trump.
The Obama administration aims to cement its greenhouse gas regulations in the time remaining, but some of the largest greenhouse gas decisions will slide to President-elect Donald Trump, according to the updated federal regulatory agenda.
From Daily Environment Report™
Turn to the nation's most objective and informative daily environmental news resource to learn how the United States and key players around the world are responding to the environmental...
By Andrew Childers
Nov. 17 — The Obama administration aims to cement its greenhouse gas regulations in the time remaining, but some of the largest greenhouse gas decisions will slide to President-elect Donald Trump, according to the updated federal regulatory agenda.
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to complete a rule for approving states’ plans (RIN:2060-AT23) to implement the Clean Power Plan, which sets carbon dioxide limits on power plants—a rule Trump has pledged to pullback.
Also on the EPA’s agenda for the next two months will be updating its mandatory greenhouse gas reporting program (RIN:2060-AS60), setting leak detection requirements for oil and gas wells (RIN:2060-AS73) and establishing limits on the use of hydrofluorocarbons (RIN :2060-AS80), which are potent greenhouse gases used in refrigeration and air conditioning, foam blowing and fire suppression. All of those rules would be open to repeal under the Congressional Review Act.
Trump has vowed to undo President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, which calls for limiting carbon dioxide from power plants and taking steps to curb emissions of short-lived but potent greenhouse gases such as methane and HFCs.
Outstanding Decisions Left to Trump
Now outstanding decisions on the future of some of the Obama EPA’s signature climate rules will be made by Trump appointees, including an ongoing review of the combined fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions limits for passenger vehicles through 2025.
According to the agenda, there is no timeline for that review, which would see the standards for model years 2022 through 2025 revised from the equivalent of 54.5 miles per gallon currently projected. The Trump administration also will complete revisions to the EPA’s greenhouse gas permitting program for stationary emissions sources after the U.S. Supreme Court held that the provisions only apply to sources required to obtain permits for emissions of conventional air pollutants.
The Obama EPA has proposed exempting facilities that emit less than 75,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually from the permitting requirements, but the regulatory agenda has no deadline for that rulemaking to be completed.
The EPA also has no schedule for completing a rule to aid states in implementation of the new, more stringent ozone standards set in 2015, according to the regulatory agenda.
EPA Implements Revised Toxics Law
The EPA also will continue its work to implement updates to the Toxic Substances Control Act, according to the agenda.
The regulatory agenda includes six new chemical rulemakings triggered by this past summer’s Toxic Substances Control Act overhaul. The rules would implement diverse provisions of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (Pub. L. No. 114-182), which amended TSCA on June 22.
The rules would:
• establish procedures to update the TSCA inventory of chemicals;
• describe how the EPA would determine which chemicals are high or low priorities for risk evaluation;
• establish the procedures the agency would use to evaluate chemical risks;
• set fees industry would pay to help defray the cost of EPA’s chemicals oversight;
• lay out the process chemical manufacturers or processors would use to substantiate confidential business information claims for specific chemical identities; and
• describe reporting requirements that will apply to any company that manufactures mercury or mercury-added products or otherwise intentionally uses mercury in a manufacturing process.
The mercury reporting regulation would apply to pharmaceutical and other manufacturers even if they aren’t typically covered by TSCA.
Water Rules Coming in Final Months
The EPA also expects to complete some of its pending water regulations in the time remaining for the Obama administration.
The EPA also is expected to propose a rule (RIN:2040-AF67) in December setting out public notification requirements in the Great Lakes for contaminated discharges from combined sewer overflows.
A final general permit (RIN:2040-AF57) to regulate discharges from small municipal storm sewer systems is scheduled for release this month. Also expected any day is the fourth update (RIN:2040-AF49) to the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring rule under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
In addition to specifying monitoring requirements, it will identify new contaminants to be tracked. Proposed in December 2015 and sent for White House review in August, the rule identifies some 30 new contaminants with a focus on blue-green algae, such as the type that polluted the water supply in Toledo, Ohio, in 2014.
Updates Planned to Lead, Copper Rule
The agency also is expected to propose in mid-2017 updates (RIN:2040-AF15) to its lead and copper rule setting technology-based standards to limit concentrations of the metals in drinking water. The drinking water crisis in Flint, Mich., caused by high levels of lead that leached into residents’ tap water, has added urgency to the updates, and some members of Congress have recommended that the agency propose a rule sooner.
The final rule is due in early 2018, according to the agenda. During his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump called the Flint crisis a “horror show” that wouldn’t have happened on his watch. He has made infrastructure improvements a key priority.
In an interview with The Detroit News, Trump said: “I think it’s a horror show that it was allowed to happen and to be honest with you it should have never, ever been allowed to happen. That was really the problem. This is a situation that would have never happened if I were president.”
Pesticides Rule Expected
The EPA is on track to finalize, potentially within days, a set of regulations that would boost standards on pesticide applicator licensing. The fall regulatory agenda stated that these regulations (RIN:2070-AJ20) would be made final before the end of this month.
The agency also included details of its economic analysis for these regulations. They would impose costs on pesticide applicators and on states of almost $50 million a year but would also induce cost savings of more than $80 million, mostly from the prevention of pesticide-related injuries.
This fall’s regulatory agenda also contained two significant items related to the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory, a database of industrial pollution from across the country.
The EPA is still on track to formally propose regulations (RIN:2070-AK16) by January that would add a sector of the oil and gas industry to its list of industries that must report pollution data to the TRI. These regulations would only apply to natural gas processing facilities, not to the broader drilling industry.
In addition, the EPA said it would make a decision by April on a petition it received from an environmental group asking it to require TRI reporting for 25 new chemicals (RIN:2070-AK26).
Radioactive Waste Disposal Rule Slides
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it won’t issue a final rule for its low-level radioactive waste disposal until March 2017. In the spring regulatory agenda, the NRC had said it would publish the final rule by November 2016.
The final rule will amend the agency’s regulations on the disposal facilities to require new site-specific technical analyses and criteria for low-level radioactive waste acceptance.
A new addition to the NRC list is a pre-rule stage of rulemaking on emergency preparedness of small modular reactors, with NuScale Power LLC’s first small modular reactor application expected to be submitted for NRC review by December. The NRC plans to issue its regulatory basis for such SMR rulemaking in March 2017.
Also, the Energy Department has had to re-evaluate its proposed rule to make more stringent energy efficiency standards for gas residential furnaces after strong opposition from industry. The agency issued a supplemental notice to its proposed rule in September and has comments now due on Nov. 22.
Superfund Vapor Intrusion
The agency plans to finalize a rule in January that considers contaminated vapor that enters buildings from the ground as criteria for Superfund site listings and cleanups. The rule (RIN:2050-AG67) will allow EPA to directly consider human exposure to contaminants that enter building structures through the subsurface environment.
— With assistance from Susan Bruninga, Rebecca Kern, Pat Rizzuto and David Schultz
To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Childers in Washington, D.C., at AChilders@bna.com
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Larry Pearl at lpearl@bna.com
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The chemistry of a US presidency.
Election season sees a chemical industry unenthusiastic about either candidate, and a research community overwhelmingly backing the Democratic nominee.
BY REBECCA TRAGER27 SEPTEMBER 2016
Election season sees a chemical industry unenthusiastic about either candidate, and a research community overwhelmingly backing the Democratic nominee
America is set to vote for a new president on 8 November, and the next occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue will have to be able to address complex issues at the intersection of science and politics. As voting day nears, it is clear that the chemistry of this election is quite different from those of past years.
In recent history, the chemical industry has been pro-Republican come election time, but in the current face-off between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican challenger Donald Trump, the sector appears to favour Clinton, while the reverse may be true for the biotech industry. The academic and scientific communities, however, back Clinton overwhelmingly.
‘We are concerned about both candidates,’ states Larry Sloan, the outgoing president and chief executive of the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates. Although Sloan says Trump would be more likely to revisit the ‘excessive regulations’ that have burdened the chemical industry under the Obama administration, he states that Clinton is more pro-trade and more inclined to revisit big global trade deals. Trump has repeatedly promised to withdraw from some of the US’s biggest global trade agreements.
Sloan also criticises the Republican candidate as ‘not very knowledgeable’ on the recent overhaul of the 40-year-old law Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that regulates chemicals in America. This bipartisan achievement, endorsed by the chemical industry and some environmental organisations, was signed into law by President Obama in June. It gives the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enhanced authority to require testing of new and existing chemicals.
Sloan and many other observers agree that the EPA desperately needed this new authority, but they say more money and staff are required. Trump’s repeated vow to dismantle, or at the very least severely curtail, the EPA doesn’t bode well for TSCA.
Two former chiefs of the EPA who served in Republican administrations have also spoken out against Trump and endorsed Clinton, saying that he has shown ‘a profound ignorance of science and of the public health issues embodied in our environmental laws’.
Raising budgets, stapling green cards
In Clinton’s response to 20 questions about science and technology and coordinated by ScienceDebate.org, Clinton vows: ‘Advancing science and technology will be among my highest priorities as president.’ She goes on to assert that the US is ‘underinvesting in research’.
Source: © Joe Raedle / Getty Images
Clinton is far more popular among scientists than Trump
Clinton’s technology and innovation plan, released in June, proposes increasing the research budgets of key US science agencies. She also wants to automatically grant permanent residency to foreign nationals who receive master’s or PhD degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) from US institutions. That proposal would enable highly skilled Stem workers to circumvent the temporary H-1B guest worker visa process. Clinton also wants ‘start-up’ visas to allow top entrepreneurs from abroad to come to the US and establish businesses.
Advancing science and technology will be among my highest priorities as president
HILLARY CLINTON
By comparison, Trump wants to revamp the H-1B visa programme so that Americans are hired over cheaper foreign graduates. The Republican candidate is also calling for a lower corporate tax rate to encourage innovation, and slashing or eliminating spending on certain federal agencies and programmes, including the EPA and the Department of Education.
‘He has clearly demonstrated no interest in funding fundamental research,’ says Lawrence Krauss, a professor at Arizona State University’s school of earth and space exploration. ‘It is not clear to me he even understands what that is.’
Donna Nelson, an organic chemist and president of the American Chemical Society (ACS) who spoke with Chemistry World in a personal capacity, recalls that Clinton has described science and innovation as a foundation for the future. She notes that science funding seems to be ‘an afterthought’ for Trump.
‘God knows’
‘What Hillary Clinton would do is to extend the Obama administration’s support for science and technology,’ says Michael Lubell, the director of public affairs at the American Physical Society. ‘In the case of Donald Trump, I would say “God knows”.’
We must make the commitment to invest in science, engineering, healthcare and other areas that make the lives of Americans better
DONALD TRUMP
However, Trump does note in his response to ScienceDebate.org’s 20 questions that, despite increasing demands to curtail spending and balance the federal budget, ‘we must make the commitment to invest in science, engineering, healthcare and other areas that make the lives of Americans better, safer and more prosperous’.
Nevertheless, Nelson points out that Clinton has experience with the general science policy infrastructure that was in place during her husband Bill Clinton’s term as president. She can draw from that foundation, Nelson states, while Trump is trying to develop an original infrastructure.
Source: © Joe Raedle / Getty Images
Trump has picked up qualified support among the business community but his unpredictability has caused jitters
Neal Lane, a physicist who served as science adviser to former president Bill Clinton and as director of the National Science Foundation before that, emphasises that Hillary Clinton has talked a lot during the campaign about the importance of investment in research and innovation in general. She has also discussed science education and workforce issues, as well as the necessity of having knowledgeable and skilled people emigrate to the US. By contrast he says Trump has not ‘said much of anything about the importance of research, anything positive about immigration and in many other ways has denigrated the importance of science to policymaking and to the country’.
Potholes take precedence
As an example of his last point, Lane cites remarks by Trump about investment in space science, technology and exploration. While campaigning in November, Trump said practical problems like potholes take precedence over space exploration. Trump also appeared to disparage the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – the nation’s well-respected biomedical research agency – on public radio last year. But what’s gotten Trump in most trouble with the scientific community is his questioning of climate change, calling it pseudoscience and even tweeting that ‘the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive’.
His policies, if implemented, would be a disaster – talented people from around the world would be denied entry
LAWRENCE KRAUSS, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
In his response to the ScienceDebate.org questions, Trump says ‘there is still much to be investigated in the field of “climate change”’, and he suggests that ‘the best use of limited financial resources’ would be to focus on things such as ensuring access to clean water worldwide, new energy sources and tackling diseases like malaria.
Former Republican congressmen John Porter, who served as the long-time chair of the House of Representatives subcommittee that funds science agencies, backs Clinton for president and says Trump ‘has no knowledge of science or the value of research’. From a support-for-science perspective, Porter says he would be ‘very, very unhappy’ if Trump is elected president. By contrast, he describesClinton as ‘very aware of the value of science’.
Nina Fedoroff, a molecular geneticist at Pennsylvania State University who served as the science and technology adviser to Hillary Clinton during the Obama administration, and Condoleeza Rice under Republican president George W Bush, echoes Porter. ‘She does understand the extent to which science drives our economy; Trump, not so much,’ says Fedoroff.
Immigration frustration
Fedoroff emphasises how hard it is for any foreign-born scientist to get through the US immigration system and obtain a green card, let alone become a citizen, and she notes that Clinton wants to ease that process. In contrast, Fedoroff calls Trump’s stance on immigration ‘a huge concern’. She notes that the nations he has identified as of concern from an immigration standpoint, like Iran and Pakistan, have ‘enormous talent pools’.
Krauss says that Trump is promoting xenophobia which is already stopping people coming to work and study in Stem in the US. ‘His policies, if implemented, would be a disaster – talented people from around the world would be denied entry,’ he states.
Clinton does understand the extent to which science drives our economy; Trump, not so much
NINA FEDOROFF, PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY
It does not appear that Clinton has an official committee of 30 or so top-level scientists to advise her campaign, as Obama did when he was running for president, but it is apparent that she still has plenty of support. Lane and Nelson are among what is described as a slew of prominent scientists offering their counsel to the Clinton campaign.
Lane says there will be ‘a long line’ of researchers and engineers who will be interested in helping a Hillary Clinton administration. ‘On the Trump side, I just don’t know – that is a totally different community,’ he adds. ‘I don’t know who would be on such a list, I have not heard of anybody.’
One person who has been linked with advising the Trump campaign on science and technology issues, though, is Republican congressman Lamar Smith, who chairs the House of Representatives’ science, space and technology committee. Smith has been involved in a number of public feuds with the academic community in recent years, however, questioning the value of a number of research grants. Smith, who trained as a lawyer and is not a scientist, has also repeatedly questioned the science of climate change.
Contributions to Trump and Clinton from the chemical and related manufacturing sectors reflects a lack of enthusiasm for Trump, compared with previous Republican candidates. The Center for Responsive Politics found that Trump received only about $43,000 (£33,000) in donations from the chemical and related manufacturing industry, which is less than a third of what Clinton has received. The last Republican challenger for the presidency, Mitt Romney, received $360,000 from this sector.
Industry cautious
Meanwhile, the US biotechnology industry appears unhappy with both major candidates. The Biotechnology Innovation Organization is not endorsing anyone, but the organisation’s president, former Republican congressman Jim Greenwood, has warned that ‘the stakes for the biotech industry could not be any higher’ in this election.
Greenwood has described the biotech sector as ‘fragile and under growing pressure’, noting that ‘a lone tweet by a candidate for high office can have unintended market moving consequences’. Those remarks appeared to reference incidents like the one in September 2015 when Clinton sent a tweet accusing drug companies of ‘price gouging’. The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index fell by 4.7% following that remark.
More recently, Clinton – who wants to reverse the ban on Medicare drug price negotiation – sent a tweet last month saying there is ‘no justification’ for Mylan Pharmaceuticals’ recent price hikes for EpiPens, used to treat serious allergic reactions. She said the price of the EpiPens has increased by more than 400% in recent years.
John Castellani, the recently retired president and chief executive of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, argued when he led that organisation that Clinton’s plan to regulate prescription drug prices would ‘turn back the clock on medical innovation and halt progress against the diseases that patients fear most’. He said she is proposing ‘sweeping and far-reaching’ changes that would restrict patient access to medicines, lead to the loss of ‘countless jobs’, and erode the US’s standing as the world leader in biomedical innovation.
But Trump has attacked the biotech and pharmaceutical industries too, arguing that Medicare should be able to negotiate drug prices and import cheaper drugs from other countries.
Trump’s unpredictability problem
It is clear that Trump would work hard to cut taxes on corporations and slash regulations, which would appeal to the chemical industry and others. But Lane says it’s difficult for such sectors to support Trump because of the uncertainty surrounding the candidate and his positions.
Glenn Ruskin, who spent over a decade as a spokesman for the chemical industry before joining the ACS, agrees with Lane. ‘The one thing that industry thrives on is predictability,’ Ruskin says. He notes that Trump has repeatedly vowed to tear down the EPA regulatory regime but said nothing about what would replace it.
The Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Texas has just issued a report addressing how America’s next president should deal with science and technology policy. It urges the new commander-in-chief to select a top-notch scientist as an adviser before inauguration in January and develop a science, technology and innovation strategy within the first 100 days after taking office.
To help illustrate the importance of what is being recommended, retired Democratic congressman and physicist Rush Holt pointed out that former President Bush had no permanent science adviser in place when the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks occurred. He suggested that this was why the response to the subsequent anthrax attacks was poorly coordinated.
In contrast, Holt, the chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, noted that Obama had already appointed John Holdren as his science adviser when he was drafting the economic stimulus package to counter the ‘Great Recession’ that hit in 2008. The result, Holt said, was that when the stimulus was enacted in February 2009, it contained an extra $21.5 billion to support R&D.;
Whoever becomes the next US president in January, experts warn they won’t be able to navigate the current geopolitical turbulence without first laying down a sufficient science policy infrastructure.
Rebecca Trager
US correspondent, Chemistry World
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Chemical safety reform passes after 'perfect storm.'
Republicans in Congress took a break from bashing EPA and voted overwhelmingly to give the agency sweeping new powers.
Chemical safety reform passes after ‘perfect storm’
By DARREN GOODE and ALEX GUILLÉN 06/07/16 07:19 PM EDT
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Republicans in Congress took a break from bashing EPA and voted overwhelmingly to give the agency sweeping new powers to regulate tens of thousands of chemicals used to make everything from car parts to cleaning products.
In fact, Congress sent the EPA-fortifying chemical safety bill to the White House at a time when presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump is promising to gut the agency if elected president. Trump has not addressed the issue, but the oil executives he is trying to woo support the congressional effort to overhaul the badly outdated Toxic Substances Control Act, as do an array of interest groups across the ideological spectrum, from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the National Wildlife Federation.
Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) says the fact that "you had extremists in both sides in agreement" was a key factor in getting the bill to the president's desk.
“You had people who liked it because it was a major environmental achievement and then people who liked it for just the opposite reason,” Inhofe told POLITICO.
While the bill arguably represents Congress' most significant environmental achievement under President Barack Obama, its path to success may be tough to replicate.
“I clearly believe that was a perfect storm that these events came together,” said Rep. John Shimkus, the lead House GOP negotiator and chairman of the House Environment and the Economy Subcommittee.
Environmentalists, business groups and lawmakers from both parties all agreed that EPA had a responsibility to protect Americans from toxic chemicals — and that it had been unable to do so, having only banned or restricted just five substances since TSCA was enacted in 1976. Meanwhile, the public was growing more concerned about how chemicals in everyday products like children's toys and furniture were affecting their health, and aggressive regulators in states like California and New York were stepping in for an absentee EPA, creating a patchwork of rules that kept the chemicals industry second guessing where it actually stood.
The American Chemistry Council — whose members include DuPont and BASF as well as affiliates of major oil and gas companies — outlined its principles for chemical safety reform in 2009, as did environmental groups and EPA in separate documents that same year. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), one of the industry's biggest champions, teamed up with Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), an ardent public health advocate, to turn those diverse principles into law. In the end, their initial framework largely survived partisan rancor, election-year politics, intraparty disagreements and even Lautenberg's death.
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“There are a lot of members of Congress that know someone whose daughter got breast cancer at age 30, or has an autistic kid or has trouble conceiving a child, and there’s more and more evidence that links chemical exposure to those health concerns ... and so it does play a little bit differently,” said Richard Denison, who led the TSCA effort for the Environmental Defense Fund.
“A lot of this oddity or rarity that you have Republicans supporting giving EPA more authority is based on the recognition by the industry that it was losing the PR battle on chemicals and they were willing to accept a stronger federal system,” he added.
Obama plans to sign the bill into law, but he has mostly been a non-entity in the negotiations. EPA has provided ample technical support for lawmakers and their aides, but chemical safety reform has elicited nary a mention from the president himself, unlike his marquee climate change regulations or first-term legislative push to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“The administration hung in with us the whole way, in a much more technical role I think probably than they did on cap and trade,” said Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), who became the lead Democrat on the bill after Lautenberg's death. “I think the president was more prominent [on cap and trade] and he was speaking out, he was right in the midst of it.”
The president's absence insulated the talks from an increasingly hot-blooded political climate. It also helped that although TSCA is a far-reaching statute, it is also immensely obscure and complex, dissuading all but those lawmakers most dedicated to a deal.
“We offered some other members to help us get involved in the room, but I think because of the complexity they just said ‘No, go ahead, you take care of it,’” Shimkus said. “Which is in the end good for us because more people in the room doesn’t always mean you get to a quicker solution.”
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Rather than the usual partisan skirmishes, the effort was marred more by civil wars among Democrats. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who is retiring at the end of this year, was in a unique position to influence the bill as ranking member of the environment committee but not as a co-sponsor of the bill. Boxer wanted to limit the bill's preemption of state-level chemical laws, and she ostracized colleagues at times, even at the sake of longtime friendships, in aggressively pursuing her priorities.
House Energy and Commerce ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), a close friend of Lautenberg who was endorsed by his family when he unsuccessfully sought to succeed him in the Senate, supplanted Boxer as chief troublemaker later in the bicameral talks, including against language prized by fellow New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker, who had beat him for Lautenberg’s seat in 2013.
Boxer and Pallone eventually backed the compromise, which passed the House last month 403-12 and, after a two-week delay triggered by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), cleared the Senate via a voice vote.
“Federalizing chemical regulations is like settling with the slip-and-fall malingerers,” Paul said shortly before the bill was passed, arguing that many Obama-era regulations started off as minor “guidance” that snowballed into costly rules and that TSCA reform might “morph into a war on chemical companies.”
“I can't, in good conscience, vote to make the EPA stronger,” Paul concluded.
Still, most EPA critics like Inhofe felt that federal chemical regulation was one of the missions the agency should be focused on.
“This is one of the legitimate functions that EPA should do,” Inhofe said. “It’s something that is extremely important but nobody knows about it.”
The chemical safety law was written more narrowly than other landmark laws of the era, such as the Clean Air Act or Clean Water Act, and it has not been updated since. TSCA has not led to any aggressive action from EPA to parallel its climate change rules for power plants or its new regulation over streams and wetlands, some of the most hated Obama rules among Republicans.
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It turned out that the law's scope was too limited, preventing EPA from curbing exposure to chemicals that were widely acknowledged to be dangerous. A 1991 court ruling striking down EPA’s original attempt to ban asbestos — a known carcinogen — underscored how toothless the law was, and the agency’s track record since hasn’t been much better.
“This is not a response to EPA unilaterally overreaching and doing things,” said Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who is informally advising Trump on energy issues. ”This has been much more of a collaborative process to get to this, collaborative to the point where it’s been pretty well compromised from all sides.”
Also aiding the effort was its narrower scope compared to more wide-ranging issues such as climate change. The chemical industry is dominated by a relatively small number of companies who sell their products to consumers and businesses across the country and would prefer a single federal standard to a patchwork of state laws.
Some of the same states that had been pursuing aggressive chemical rules, such as California and New York, are also leading the charge to aggressively limit greenhouse gas emissions. But the companies most affected by those rules, namely electric utilities, are far more balkanized, operating within single states or regions — meaning the industry does not have the same motivation to coalesce on a course for national action.
The TSCA push also did not suffer from an aggressive campaign to question the science linking chemical exposure to cancer or other health problems, unlike the longstanding effort by Republicans like Inhofe and Trump to declare climate change a hoax.
Without a politically charged atmosphere, Republicans and Democrats were able to reach an acceptable give-and-take. Under the compromise reform bill, EPA would receive expanded abilities to regulate and a revived mandate to go after a specific dangerous substances, including asbestos and arsenic. In return, states’ authority to more deeply regulate chemicals was limited with the aim of preventing future patchwork problems from cropping up.
“I’ve always described TSCA reform as being like a purple unicorn, that rarest of mythical beasts that needs care and protection from all of us to have a chance to survive,” said Rich Gold, the veteran head of the public policy group at Holland & Knight. “The fact that this bill is going to the president is as close to a miracle as I’ll see in my career.”
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Toxic control.
The United States is overhauling its chemicals law; now it must tackle carbon emissions.
The United States is overhauling its chemicals law; now it must tackle carbon emissions.
31 May 2016
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The 1976 US Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) must be one of the worst pieces of environmental legislation ever devised. Rather than empowering the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ensure that new chemicals are safe, the law declared all chemicals harmless, unless proven otherwise. The situation is so preposterous, in fact, that even the normally dysfunctional US Congress managed to unite last week to advance reform.
The bipartisan TSCA reform bill passed the House of Representatives, by a vote of 403–12, on 24 May. Although senator Rand Paul (Republican, Kentucky) has temporarily blocked a vote in the Senate, the legislation is expected to pass in the coming weeks, clearing the way for a signature by President Barack Obama. Once that happens, EPA scientists will at last have the authority to do their jobs.
Rather than watching passively as some 700 new chemicals enter all corners of the US marketplace each year, the EPA would be able to require companies to provide more data and conduct extra research to demonstrate the safety of the products. The legislation would also bolster review of existing substances. The TSCA inventory currently lists some 85,000 chemicals, but no one knows how many are still in use today. The EPA would create a new inventory and then sift through it to see which ones merit further investigation.
What is most remarkable about this reform legislation — aside from the fact that it took so long — is the list of supporters: Democrats and Republicans, both houses of Congress and the legislative branch, as well as many environmentalists and the chemical industry. The reason is simple: the companies that manufacture and use chemicals, once adamantly opposed to such reform bills, have realized that a viable federal regulatory system is in their financial interest. The complete lack of public confidence in the EPA’s authority under the TSCA has pushed environmental officials at the state level to launch their own investigations and regulations. The upshot is that without a stronger federal system, the industry faces an increasingly complex — and uncertain — patchwork of regulations.
This is all good news for the public, which is bombarded daily by news reports, environmental campaigns and scientific studies that analyse the danger of one chemical or another in products that they purchase every day. It is also good for science. The new law will drive research into chemicals of concern, and companies will find it harder to claim that the information that they submit is a trade secret. As a result, more data will enter the public and academic spheres, and that is always a good thing.
“It’s a reasonable compromise that moves the regulatory needle in the right direction.”
Environmentalists pushed to ensure that the EPA’s new decisions about health risks will be based on health data alone, without regard to economic implications. Under the new legislation, the EPA would be able to consider economic impacts in any subsequent cost–benefit analysis only if it moves forward with regulations. And industry pushed for mandatory deadlines to ensure that decisions are made in a timely manner. All in all, it’s a reasonable compromise that moves the regulatory needle in the right direction.
It is also a blueprint for what ultimately needs to happen to break the legislative stalemate on what is perhaps the greatest environmental challenge: the effect of greenhouse gases on climate. Despite overwhelming evidence showing the need for action, the energy industry has obstructed and stalled for too long, and the only real result is prolonged regulatory uncertainty. If major businesses, including energy producers and consumers, were to get together en masse and push for regulation, Republican lawmakers would be forced to pull their heads out of the sand and think about reasonable solutions that are in line with their own political values.
Low-carbon energy such as nuclear power and that obtained from renewables would benefit the most, but natural gas would also get a short-term boost as utilities back further away from coal, which is already on the decline. Even coal would see its chances of survival increase in the long run, because properly agreed federal regulations would bolster the economics and interest in technologies that can be used to capture and sequester, or even use, carbon dioxide. At a minimum, with a legitimate set of rules in place, companies could move forward and plan their long-term investments accordingly.
Everyone could see that the original TSCA bill created a problem. It has taken decades, but reform was inevitable. The need for legal controls on the generation and control of greenhouse gases is just as clear — indeed, that is why the energy industry has fought so hard to undermine the evidence. This time, we do not have decades to waste.
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