Background
To date, California has relied on the federal government’s failed regulatory system to protect its residents from industrial chemicals used in commerce. California has no regulatory framework for reviewing these chemicals prior to their introduction to the market and use in consumer products. Nor does the state have a comprehensive program for assessing the safety of those chemicals currently in use.
Last year, California Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Linda Adams launched the Green Chemistry Initiative to develop a comprehensive approach for dealing with hazardous chemicals. Over the past year, Environment California has participated in the initiative through stakeholder meetings, individual meetings with California Department of Toxic Substances Control Director Maureen Gorsen and her staff, the submission of comments describing our core principles for comprehensive chemicals policy reform, and extensive work with partnering organizations in the coalition Californians for a Healthy and Green Economy (CHANGE), including the submission of comments and responses to questions on the Green Chemistry Initiative blog and the development of chemicals policy options and a framework for implementing reform measures.
Environment California views the following principles as central to the success of California’s Green Chemistry Initiative and, ultimately, to protecting Californians from toxic chemicals:
1. Decisions affecting human health and the environment should be based on the intrinsic hazards of a chemical and a new approach to toxicity testing.
California should adopt a hazard-based approach to chemicals policy whereby policy actions to reduce or eliminate a chemical’s use should be triggered by a chemical’s intrinsic hazards, including a chemical’s toxic, persistent, or bioaccumulative qualities and a chemical’s ability to cause biological changes that are likely to lead to diseases. Based on a chemical’s intrinsic hazards, the state should determine any necessary immediate action to be taken, including removing a chemical from the market. Further, information on mutagenicity, genetic toxicity, reproductive effects, developmental toxicity, carcinogenicity, immunological effects, neurological and neurodevelopmental effects, effects on organs, respiratory effects, epigenetic effects, and endocrine disruption should guide decisions about how and whether chemicals should be used in society. Where there is uncertainty in the evidence, policies should err on the side of protecting health and the environment.
Currently, most decisions regarding chemicals are based on a complicated, time-consuming, and resource-intensive process that attempts to assess risk through a calculation of exposure and potential harm, rather than err on the side of protecting health and preventing disease by avoiding chemical use where there is evidence of potential harm. This means that even when there are good data on the dangers of chemicals, these substances are still allowed on the market with regulators simply trying to “manage” the risk by finding “safe” levels. Such a process typically relies on inadequate hazard information and an assessment of exposure, which only provides a snapshot into the particular time the chemical is being evaluated. Most often, risk assessments are conducted with incomplete information on the range of potential health and environmental impacts with which we are concerned. Moreover, because the uses of chemicals and exposures to chemicals can and do change, the fundamental assumptions about exposures relied upon to ultimately assess and manage risk lack long term validity with respect to the protection of human health and the environment.
California must invest in the development of new testing methods to assess and characterize chemicals. Current methods are outdated; fail to incorporate key concepts, such as the timing of exposure, cumulative exposures, synergistic effects of chemicals, and low-dose impacts; and do not address all of the important hazard traits, especially those of concern for women and children. Decisions about chemicals should be based on a new approach that accounts for these and other emerging concepts.
2. Chemical manufacturers should prove their products are safe.
For existing chemicals, chemical manufacturers should be required to prove their products are safe in order to allow their continued manufacture and use. By 2010, chemical manufacturers should be required to provide to the appropriate governmental body all hazard and safety information for existing chemicals for which little or inadequate data are available. Required data should include detailed information on the physical properties and intrinsic hazards of a chemical as described above. For new chemicals, such information should be required before they are permitted to be manufactured.
In addition, the reliability and adequacy of the information must be validated. Through either an independent third party without a conflict of interest or the recipient governmental body, information provided by chemical manufacturers must be evaluated for its adequacy in meeting the requirements and reliability as scientific evidence.
3. Hazardous chemicals and chemicals with inadequate safety data should be phased out.
If a chemical is known to pose a hazard to human health or the environment and a safer alternative exists, it should be tracked for immediate phase out. If a chemical is known to pose a hazard to human health or the environment and a safe alternative does not exist, its use and potential exposures should be minimized and a timeline for its phase out should be established.
If a chemical has not been adequately evaluated for potential hazards and a safer alternative exists, it should be tracked for immediate phase out. If a chemical has not been adequately evaluated for potential hazards and a safer alternative does not exist, its use and potential exposures should be minimized and a timeline for its phase out should be established.
4. Industry should bear the costs associated with their chemical production or use.
Manufacturers and users of chemicals should be held responsible legally and financially for the costs and consequences of producing and/or using hazardous or potentially hazardous chemicals. Manufacturers should bear the financial burden of testing chemicals for safety and making the data available to potential users. Users should pay fees in order to use a hazardous chemical in advance of an eventual phase out of the chemical. Users of hazardous chemicals incorporating them into consumer products should be required to take back their products from consumers to ensure proper disposal. With respect to past behavior, those responsible for contaminating California’s environment and households should bear the costs of clean up.
5. Safer alternatives to hazardous chemicals should be required.
With the mandated phase out of hazardous chemicals, safer alternatives should be required. In addition to chemical-for-chemical substitutions, chemical users should consider changing their manufacturing processes, selecting alternative materials, and redesigning their products. Safer alternatives must be evaluated for their intrinsic hazards, as described above.
6. The public has a right to know about chemicals in use and participate in decisions affecting the impact of these chemicals on their communities.
The public has a right to know about chemicals currently on the market, including their specific uses, potential hazards to health and the environment, and potential exposures. Such information should never be considered confidential business information. California should create an easily understood matrix of all chemicals currently in use with information on their hazard traits for use by downstream users, consumers, and other interested parties. Such a matrix would: 1) identify missing data, 2) enable businesses and consumers to compare the safety of chemicals, and 3) support the promotion of and create demand for safer alternatives.
Right to know laws also should include mandatory labeling on consumer products and disclosure regarding manufacturing processes indicating the presence of chemicals that are or may be hazardous. Until health and safety data are available for a particular chemical, there should be mandatory labeling for consumer products indicating the presence of chemicals that have not been tested for their impact on human health.
The public also has a right to participate in decisions about chemicals that could affect public health or the environment.