The Vermont House approved a resolution this week urging Congress to pass tougher laws regulating toxic chemicals in the United States.
The resolution urges Congress to strengthen the law under which the Environmental Protection Agency regulates toxic chemicals, called the Toxic Substances Control Act. Congress is considering two pieces of legislation to revise and possibly strengthen that law.
The resolution asks Congress to go beyond either of those pieces of legislation and to require all new chemicals to undergo testing before they’re introduced into commerce. Currently there are no EPA testing requirements for new and existing chemicals, of which more than 80,000 are thought to be currently in use.
In addition, it asks that Congress remove provisions in the legislation that would prohibit states from regulating chemicals that the federal government does not.
Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1976, and since then the EPA has used its authority to regulate only five substances.
Environmental advocates say a precedent-setting case in the 1990s, in which a judge found that under this law the EPA lacked authority to regulate asbestos, shows that the Toxic Substances Control Act doesn’t work. Incidents such as widespread contamination of Bennington County drinking water with the suspected carcinogen perfluorooctanoic acid show that reform is needed, advocates say.
In the absence of federal regulation, states must act on their own, said Rep. David Deen, D-Westminster, chairman of the House Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources Committee.
“If they can’t get it together to enact meaningful reform, then I’m building an agenda to start taking action here in Vermont next year,” he said last week. “It really should be a federal responsibility, but short of a federal responsibility I think Vermonters have a right to protect themselves.”
Deen’s committee sponsored the resolution, which is now in the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee.
