After finding that a "vast volume of chemicals have been
released into the environment with little or no knowledge
of their long term health or environmental effects," Congress
in 1976 passed the Toxic Substances Control Act. The bill
gave the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the authority
to review the environmental health and safety effects
of chemicals such as mercury, asbestos, vinyl chloride,
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs), which harm the environment and can cause cancer
and/or other serious diseases. Today, as a result of this
legislation, the EPA tests both new and existing chemicals
to determine if they pose an unreasonable risk to public
health or the environment. If a substance is found to
be harmful, the EPA can move to regulate or ban it.
To inform communities and citizens of chemical hazards
in their areas, Congress in 1986 created the Toxic Inventory
Release (TRI) program. Originally, the law required companies
to report on 311 dangerous chemicals that are handled
and/or released into the environment, however, as of December
1998 that number had grown to 579 individual chemicals
and 28 chemical categories.
In general, the chemical industry and environmentalists
agree that the TRI reporting system is one of the most
effective environmental regulations in place today. However,
a "loophole" in the reporting system, which only requires
companies to publicly disclose the release of large amounts
of chemicals, is a point of contention between the environmental
and chemical communities. According to the EPA, up to
95 percent of toxic chemicals released into the environment
are not reported because of this loophole.
In 1999, the EPA unveiled a proposal to close the TRI
"loophole" by dropping the reporting threshold to releases
as small as 10 pounds or 100 pounds depending on the chemical.
The rule would strengthen reporting requirements for 27
"persistent bioaccumulative toxics" including mercury,
dioxin (which is produced by burning waste such as plastics)
and PCBs. These chemicals do not break down easily and
build up in the environment to the point where they are
passed through the food chain. Reactions to the proposal
were mixed. Some environmental groups called the proposal
a major step towards a clean and healthy environment,
while others said it didnít go far enough to ensure that
a significant amount of pollution would not be unreported.
The Children's Environmental Protection and Right to Know
Act, which is currently before Congress, would also expand
toxic chemical reporting requirements.
Superfund is the nation's principal federal program for
cleaning up thousands of hazardous waste sites that threaten
public health and the environment. Under the Superfund
law, responsible parties must pay to clean up polluted
sites. If a responsible party is not found, a trust fund
created from taxes collected on petroleum and specified
chemicals pays for the cleanup. However, this tax has
expired and currently no new money is being added to the
trust fund for Superfund cleanup. Congress is currently
looking at ways to reform the Superfund program.
Congress unanimously passed the Food Quality Protection
Act (FQPA) in 1996 to regulate the sale and use of pesticides.
Under the law, pesticide manufacturers must provide the
EPA with acute and chronic toxicity data to test for their
potential to cause cancer, infertility, sterility, birth
defects, nerve damage or chronic diseases. The EPA then
uses the data to review pesticide products before they
can be used. For example, the EPA is currently reviewing
the use of organophosphates, which account for about half
of all pesticides used in the United States. Farmers favor
these pesticides because they are effective and cheap.
However, environmentalists contend that infants and small
children are at risk from eating foods with organophosphate
residues
Clean Air Act Amendments, Worst Case Scenarios and
the Internet
When Congress amended the Clean Air Act in 1990 it
required thousands of facilities to disclose what could
happen in a "worst-case scenario" involving their most
dangerous chemicals. Initially the EPA planned to post
the accident reports on the Internet, where communities
would be able to easily compare the accident safety
plans of local chemical plants with similar plants across
the country. However, the Internet plan was suspended
after the Chemical Manufacturers Association, the FBI
and the CIA raised concerns that terrorists would use
the information to cause a chemical catastrophe. Environmentalists,
especially the Working Group on Community Right to Know,
say that by keeping the information off the Internet,
Congress is preventing corporate accountability. They
argue that public access to chemical plant safety plans
will make communities safer, not more dangerous
For more information on toxics issues and what you can
do to help, check out these Web sites:
