As the House and Senate begin reconciling their respective bills to reach a final deal to send to President Obama, 12 state attorneys general are urging Congress to keep a strong role for state governments to act on dangerous chemicals. There’s a lot at stake, they say in a January 19 letter, because states have historically […]

The Value of Knowing and Caring about What’s Actually in Legislation

It looks as though the Senate is likely to vote on TSCA reform this week and the propaganda machine is in full swing. Yesterday, I took a call from New York Times columnist Joe Nocera, thinking he was writing about the legislation and what the issues were. I didn’t realize he was actually writing a column about us, instigated, as he admits, by his “old friend” at the Environmental Defense Fund’s affiliate. The column is flat wrong, but it also provides an opportunity to talk about where we are and what’s at stake.

Last week, members of the Safer Chemicals Healthy Families coalition celebrated the more activist origins of Mothers Day by telling members of Congress that the best gift for moms (and the people who love them) would be to protect our families from toxic chemicals.

Action Taken in Minnesota Benefits People in New Mexico

The choice presented by the bill is a false one. The pace of EPA chemical reviews under the bill is very modest, arguably more modest than the recent pace of state action. The first does not require the cancellation of the second. The solution to the problem is fairly simple: amend the bill so that no state is blocked from acting until and unless EPA has taken its own action to restrict a toxic chemical.

The Democrats on the relevant House subcommittee proposed fixes to the Chemicals in Commerce Act, the deeply flawed reform legislation sponsored by the subcommittee’s chairman, John Shimkus (R-IL). Rather than engage on the proposed fixes, the industry dismissed it…

The promise of prevention and the hope for healing By The Science and Environmental Health Network PDF available at www.sehn.org and www.healthandenvironment.org The Ecology of Breast Cancer: the promise of prevention and the hope for healing makes the case that breast cancer is a disease arising from diverse societal conditions. Although well-recognized risk factors and […]

Today is the official 37^th “birthday” for our toxic chemical law the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The last time our primary law on toxic chemicals was update was 1976 and as you can image, we’ve learned a thing or two about the ways in which chemicals behave in our bodies and the environment.

Just when you thought you weren't depressed enough with the 24 hour news cycle regurgitating nonstop stories about the failure of our government to do anything, it can actually get worse—when you witness it first hand for the very first time. Yes, Stupid Cancer went to Washington and this is my comedy of terrors.

Senator Frank Lautenberg was buried today at Arlington cemetery, closing a week of mourning and remembrance worthy of his long career in public service. I had the privilege of observing the Senator from a distance as a constituent when I was a young man and later to work closely with him and his staff after he returned to the Senate in 2002, mostly on the issue of chemical reform.