Workers should be able to earn a paycheck without putting their lives or their health and well-being on the line. Yet every day, an estimated 137 U.S. workers succumb to diseases caused by on-the-job exposure to toxic chemicals and other hazardous substances, and hundreds of thousands more suffer from nonfatal illnesses. In fact, more people die annually from toxic exposures at work than from car crashes, firearms, or opioids.
Today, the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) releases a new handbook, Chemical Detox for the Workplace: A Guide to Securing a Nontoxic Work Environment, exploring multiple strategies that workers, their representatives, and advocates can implement to reduce or eliminate chemical hazards in their workplaces and assist injured workers, all without waiting for government intervention. This is critically important now more than ever as the Trump administration and the chemical industry fight aggressively to undermine existing protections and stall new ones.
Weak and outdated chemical exposure standards for the workplace have long been a challenge for workers, but the Trump administration has actively sought to make a bad problem worse. Some of Trump's first acts as president were to delay enforcement of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) newest chemical exposure limits for silica dust and beryllium and subsequently to propose easing requirements in the beryllium standard for the maritime and construction industries. OSHA has also abandoned the development of limits on exposure to the organic solvent 1-brompropane and the industrial chemical styrene, both of which cause neurological damage and may cause cancer. Trump has also repeatedly proposed slashing the Department of Labor's budget and eliminating the Chemical Safety Board, the independent federal agency that investigates major industrial chemical incidents.
Operations have fared even worse at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is charged with implementing the 2016 update to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Under TSCA, EPA must perform risk evaluations of high-priority chemicals and then issue standards to manage the risks those chemicals pose to human health, including to workers, and the environment. Yet Trump appointed a chemical industry lobbyist straight from the American Chemistry Council, a chemical industry trade group, to serve as the Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator of EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP), the office tasked with performing EPA's work under TSCA and other federal environmental laws addressing toxic substances. Not coincidentally, since Trump took office, EPA has allowed new chemicals onto the market despite significant risks to workers and has halted its own proposed ban on the commercial use of methylene chloride.
The risks posed by toxic substances at work are too great to ignore. Chemical hazards lurk at virtually every worksite imaginable, including in sectors like agriculture, domestic cleaning, nail salons, disaster response, and chemical manufacturing.
CPR's new guide provides workers, their representatives, and advocates with resources to learn about chemical hazards and tactics for addressing exposures in the workplace. Some of the strategies explored in the manual include working with an employer to utilize safer alternatives, filing a complaint with OSHA or submitting a tip to EPA, suing low-road employers using "citizen suit" provisions in federal environmental laws or by filing a toxic tort lawsuit, and advocating beyond the workplace. Our hope is that this guide will help workers take action to secure a nontoxic work environment even if the Trump administration continues to shirk its responsibilities.
To learn more, check out the report and tune in for a webinar on Wednesday, May 8 at 1 p.m. Eastern. You can register by clicking here.
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Katie Tracy | April 17, 2019
Workers should be able to earn a paycheck without putting their lives or their health and well-being on the line. Yet every day, an estimated 137 U.S. workers succumb to diseases caused by on-the-job exposure to toxic chemicals and other hazardous substances, and hundreds of thousands more suffer from nonfatal illnesses. In fact, more people die annually from toxic exposures at work than from car crashes, firearms, or opioids.
William Funk | April 16, 2019
Last week, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a memorandum to all agencies regarding compliance with the Congressional Review Act (CRA). This memo supersedes one issued in 1999 and pulls independent regulatory agencies – specifically designed by Congress to be less prone to political interference than executive agencies – […]
Matt Shudtz | April 15, 2019
The federal Clean Water Act has been a resounding success as a tool for restoring our nation's waterways and preserving wetlands and other vital components of our ecosystems. But that success depends, in part, on restricting development in ecologically sensitive areas. That's why the Trump administration has proposed to narrow the scope of the Clean […]
Daniel Farber | April 12, 2019
Originally published on Legal Planet. Every day, it seems that there is a headline about some investigation involving campaign finance violations, the White House, or the actions of some foreign power. Perhaps that's all the bandwidth that Congress has. But there are other areas calling out for inquiry. Here are just a few: CAFE Standards. […]
Alejandro Camacho, Robert L. Glicksman | April 11, 2019
Originally published by The Conversation. The Trump administration's push to boost fossil fuel extraction has received a major setback. On March 29, Judge Sharon Gleason of the U.S. District Court for Alaska ruled invalid Trump's order lifting a ban on oil and gas drilling in much of the the Arctic Ocean and along parts of […]
Daniel Farber | April 9, 2019
Originally published on Legal Planet. Cost-benefit analysis has long been the target of environmentalist ire. But one lesson of the Trump years has been that economic analysis can be a source of support for environmental policy — it is the anti-regulatory forces who have to fudge the numbers to justify their actions. Most energy and […]
Evan Isaacson | April 8, 2019
The Chesapeake Bay Program has just compiled its annual data assessing progress toward the watershed-wide pollution reduction target under the Bay restoration framework known as the "Bay TMDL." The bottom line is that recent gains in Bay health could soon be eclipsed by the lagging pace of pollution reductions, with the likely result that the region will fall well short of the Bay TMDL 2025 target date to achieve the reductions needed to restore the Bay's health.
Daniel Farber | April 1, 2019
Originally published on Legal Planet. EPA pollution regulations are based on an assessment of the risks posed by pollutants. This can be a complex scientific judgment. The Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), the agency's scientific advisory board, is pushing for major changes in the way that EPA approaches this analysis. The effect would be […]
Daniel Farber | March 29, 2019
Originally published on Legal Planet. The Washington Post has a list of false statements by Trump, which turns out to be searchable by topic. They've found, "In the first eight months of his presidency, President Trump made 1,137 false or misleading claims, an average of five a day." As of March 17, he was up […]