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Kids and Rocket Fuel

Sometime this month, EPA is expected to reach a final determination on regulating perchlorate in Americans’ drinking water. Every indication is that the agency will conclude, despite ample advice to the contrary, that there’s no need for a national standard for the chemical – a component of rocket fuel and munitions. That, even though, by EPA’s own account, millions of Americans are exposed to perchlorate at concentrations that could have a negative impact on our health.

 

(For some background on why perchlorate isn’t something you want in your water, and particularly in your kids’ drinking water, check out Shana Jones’s post on this blog from October 24.)

 

Deciding whether a national drinking water regulation “presents a meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction” is a decision that, by law, depends solely on the judgment of the EPA Administrator. In this instance, Administrator Stephen Johnson’s apparent decision not to regulate puts him on a bit of an island at the agency. EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), established by Congress to provide independent technical advice and peer review support to the Administrator, is urging Johnson to slow down his rush to get this policy published. The SAB is taking the conservative and principled stance that a final decision should be postponed until the Agency’s peer reviewers have had time to critique the new pharmacokinetic model used to justify the decision not to regulate.

 

Meanwhile, EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee (CHPAC) is going a step further – demanding in no uncertain terms that Johnson reverse his preliminary determination and decide instead to adopt a national standard. In support of their argument, CHPAC notes that the pharmacokinetic model on which Johnson relies “has been validated for adult humans and rat pups, but it has not been validated in infants and children.” They frame Johnson’s decision this way:

This decision does not recognize the science which supports the exquisite sensitivity of the developing brain to even small drops in thyroid hormone levels and the fact that neonates have much diminished stores of thyroid hormones relative to adults. The Agency must ensure that this life stage is adequately protected.

As CPR’s Rena Steinzor recently wrote in this space, one of the Executive Orders that CPR suggested President-elect Obama amend early in his term is E.O. 13045, Protection of Children From Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks. The report offers several recommendations for improving E.O. 13045, but the first is the most pertinent here: setting an affirmative agenda, with deadlines, for new actions to protect children from exposure to a number of chemicals, including perchlorate. Here are the details:

The revised Order should identify each of the agencies and departments responsible for protecting children from harmful exposure to … perchlorate. The Order should require each of these agencies and departments to issue a public report to the President within six months after the Order's issuance. These reports should (1) describe what the reporting agency or department knows about these threats to children and the nature and scope of their exposure, (2) explain why the reporting agency or department has not yet taken action to eliminate such exposures, and (3) establish a timetable no longer than 18 months after issuance of the report for taking action to eliminate these exposures.

Complying with the amended E.O. 13045 should be rather simple for EPA. As the CHPAC letter explains, EPA already has all of the data showing that a national drinking water standard for perchlorate is appropriate and necessary. All we need is an EPA Administrator willing to exercise her/his power under the Safe Drinking Water Act to protect our kids. With luck, one is on the way.  

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Matt Shudtz | December 10, 2008

Kids and Rocket Fuel

Sometime this month, EPA is expected to reach a final determination on regulating perchlorate in Americans’ drinking water. Every indication is that the agency will conclude, despite ample advice to the contrary, that there’s no need for a national standard for the chemical – a component of rocket fuel and munitions. That, even though, by […]

James Goodwin | December 9, 2008

Building a Better Risk Assessment Process

One of many areas in which the Bush Administration has sought to throw sand in the gears of the regulatory process is by tampering with the methods of risk assessment used by regulatory agencies as part of their process of gauging how much regulation, if any, is needed in a certain area.   More specifically, […]

Matthew Freeman | December 8, 2008

Reporting on the Environment Takes a Back Seat

Shortly before Thanksgiving, a quartet of heavyweight health organizations issued their annual “Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer.” The principal finding of the study from the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries is that the […]

Matt Shudtz | December 5, 2008

REACH-ing for a Better Policy on Toxics

Dan Rosenberg of NRDC has an excellent new post up on Switchboard that lays out some ideas for reforming U.S. chemical policies in the wake of the Bush Administration. The ideas include improving the risk assessment process EPA uses to develop its IRIS database, strengthening chemical security measures, re-invigorating right-to-know policies under the Toxic Release […]

Shana Campbell Jones | December 4, 2008

The Clean Water Act, Please, and Hold the Fried Fish

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Entergy Corp. v. EPA. The case involves a challenge by electric utilities to new EPA regulations requiring power plants to protect aquatic life by regulating “cooling water intake structures” at existing power plants. Billions of fish, shellfish, and other aquatic organisms are drawn into these […]

James Goodwin | December 3, 2008

A Game of Inches or a Game of Feet?

Perhaps no other consequence of global climate change kindles the public’s fears like the prospect of catastrophic sea-level rise.  For years now, climate scientists have recognized the potential for increasing global surface temperatures to produce certain kinds of feedback loops that would accelerate the collapse of massive ice shelves in Greenland and Antarctica, leading to […]

Shana Campbell Jones | December 2, 2008

The Chesapeake Bay Dead Zone Needs a Ref

Chief Justice Earl Warren once said he always turned to the sports section of the newspaper first. “The sports page records people’s accomplishments,” he explained. “The front page has nothing but man’s failures.” The Chesapeake Bay has been in the news a lot lately, and its fans aren’t cheering. When it comes to Bay cleanup […]

Margaret Clune Giblin | December 1, 2008

High Noon for the Last Surviving Land Disposal Law?

The “land disposal” laws line up on the pages of U.S. history books, reminders of a bygone era when the government of a young nation was striving to find ways to encourage people to move west by giving away public lands at bargain-basement prices. The Homestead Act of 1862, for example, gave settlers title to […]

Matthew Freeman | November 28, 2008

Tom McGarity on preemption in November 28 Austin American Statesman

CPR’s Tom McGarity has an op-ed this morning in the Austin American Statesman on Wyeth vs. Levine, the Supreme Court case testing an assertion by pharmaceutical manufacturer Wyeth that FDA approval of its proposed drug label shields the company from tort litigation over harm that drug subsequently causes.  The Court heard oral arguments on the […]