[L]awmakers have sent a bill to the House floor that would create a chemical management committee to scrutinize the use of toxic and hazardous chemicals in the state.
The bill, titled S.103, was crafted by Sen. Brian Campion, D-Bennington, spurred in part by the pollution of Vermont wells with the suspected carcinogen perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, primarily in the Bennington area.
Rebecca Ellis, senior counsel for governmental affairs at the Department of Environmental Conservation, told members of the House Committee on Natural Resources, Fish and Wildlife that the governor may oppose the bill as it’s currently written. The chairman of that committee, Rep. David Deen, D-Westminster, said he’d schedule time Tuesday for administration officials to testify.
The bill’s most contentious components would expand the state’s ability to regulate toys containing potentially toxic chemicals.
The health commissioner would be able to regulate toys that “may” harm children as the result of toxic substances they contain, as opposed to the current standard, requiring that it be proven such toys “will” harm children. The commissioner could also make determinations on whether to regulate children’s toys based on credible, peer-reviewed research, as opposed to needing “the weight of evidence” supporting such a finding.
The language has to do with Act 188, an existing law that requires manufacturers to notify the state of toxic chemicals their products contain. An Act 188 working group may currently recommend banning toys likely to harm children because of chemicals.
Currently the health commissioner must receive a recommendation from that working group in order to make a determination that a chemical should be subject to reporting, and the commissioner must find that the “weight of evidence” shows the substance is indeed toxic.
Representatives are seeking to change that requirement, through S.103, to allow the commissioner to make a determination on the toxicity of substances in children’s toys using credible, peer-reviewed scientific research.
The difference is important, said Johanna de Graffenreid, an environmental advocate with the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.
Years of scientific research can create a body of evidence showing that a substance isn’t toxic, she said. But — as was the case with perfluorooctanoic acid — new discoveries might reveal that likely isn’t the case. The weight of evidence in such a case would point to an outdated understanding of that chemical, de Graffenreid said.
But the change would open the door to abuse, said William Driscoll, vice president of Associated Industries of Vermont.
If administrators aren’t bound by the weight of evidence when they decide whether to list a substance as toxic, they can simply “cherry-pick” which peer-reviewed research supports their personal inclinations, he said.
The bill would also form a working group that would pass recommendations to the health commissioner, suggesting how to more effectively regulate the use of chemicals — particularly toxic and hazardous substances — within the state.
The working group would also be tasked with forming a statewide database listing chemicals used in Vermont industries and elsewhere.
The bill arose from 13 recommendations made by another working group convened by last year’s Act 154. Lawmakers originally included all the group’s recommendations in the bill, but by the time it left the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee, they’d whittled it down to only two of those.
Once the bill entered the House Committee on Natural Resources, Fish and Wildlife, lawmakers put back into it three of the Act 154 working group’s recommendations that had been excised while it was in the Senate.
Environmental advocates say they’re unhappy that the bill now lacks what they say are important reforms it originally contained.
“While we support this bill moving forward, because it’s important for the communities of Vermont, as well as for the larger issue of toxics reform, VPIRG is disappointed the bill is not currently stronger, and we intend to continue to strengthen toxics reform in the state,” said de Graffenreid.
One of the pieces representatives reinserted would require manufacturers to disclose the chemical components of products and identify the products by UPC code. That would allow Vermonters to quickly look up what substances are in products they may buy.
“That’s a crucial change,” de Graffenreid said, because without it Vermonters have no way to know for certain what’s in their products.
Department of Health officials have spoken of creating an app that would index products by their UPC codes, if this piece of the bill is adopted. If the state doesn’t take that step, nonprofits such as VPIRG are likely to attempt it, de Graffenreid said.
