BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I support the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act because it offers Americans meaningful protection from exposure to dangerous, unregulated chemicals found in the products we use every day. This bill represents a substantive step in favor of public health, but it's far from what's needed.
Today, the status quo isn't working. Industries can release hundreds of chemicals each year into our homes and workplaces without any federal requirement to consider their safety. Researchers have linked chemicals used in things like household cleaners, clothing, and furniture, to serious illnesses like cancer, infertility, diabetes and Parkinson's. The current law, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), isn't up to the job. It restricts the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from doing much of anything about these dangers. Under TSCA, only a small fraction of the thousands of chemicals used in our products have ever been reviewed for safety.
The current law is so weak that the EPA couldn't even regulate asbestos. In 1989, after 10 years of research and more than 100,000 pages of administrative record supporting action, the EPA issued a rule under TSCA to ban most uses of asbestos. But two years later, the EPA's regulation was overturned by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals; while acknowledging that ``asbestos is a potential carcinogen at all levels of exposure,'' the Court ruled that the agency's administrative record failed to demonstrate that the regulation was the ``least burdensome alternative,'' as required under the law. Since the court's ruling, the burden to regulate most toxic substances under TSCA has been insurmountable.
The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act is an important improvement over TSCA. It would require reviews for chemicals in use today, mandating greater scrutiny of new chemicals, and removing barriers that have prevented the EPA from regulating highly toxic substances in the past, such as asbestos.
This reform is necessary, but it's not adequate. The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act doesn't do everything public health and safety demand. Unfortunately, it bows to chemical industry, which stood in the way of reform for so long, in key provisions. For example, the chemical industry demanded and got unprecedented state preemption standards in the bill. It also imposes limitations on the EPA's ability to monitor chemicals in imported products. Federal policy should be a floor, not a ceiling, for public health and safety. States, like my Minnesota, have led the way in creating chemical safety standards that protect their residents. Last year in Minnesota, we took an important step toward protecting children and firefighters' health when the legislature passed a law to prohibit toxic flame retardants.
For my part, I will continue to be an advocate for reform that protects public health, not special interests like the chemical industry.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT