The Environmental Working Group's campaign for Kid-Safe Chemicals shifted into high gear exactly a week before the 40th anniversary of Earth Day (poetic justice), when Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) introduced the Safe Chemicals Act (SCA) to reform our current ineffective toxic chemicals law, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

EWG staff delivered a petition with more than 88,000 constituent signatures to key lawmakers (picture, right), including Senators Lautenberg and Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Work, and Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL), Chair of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection. See the terrific pictures - including the 188-foot long (!) printed petition - here.

EWG is actively participating in the effort to move this reform process forward. Our scientists and policy experts are blogging about both the House and Senate versions on our Kid-Safe Chemicals Campaign blog. We're assessing the proposed changes and suggesting improvements where we see a need. Here are 5 of the analyses we've posted in the 2 weeks since these documents were released:

• April 28th - Save the Best for Last, or Do the Worst First Ever keep putting off the worst things on your to-do list? Like dusting before tackling the bathrooms or puttering around in the garden before balancing your checkbook as your kids jump on the trampoline (before making their beds)?

  Under the House's discussion draft for chemical policy reform, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) won't have that luxury. The draft puts the worst first. Details aside, that's the best approach we can imagine for determining how EPA should approach the task of assessing industrial chemicals that might threaten human health. Keep reading..

• April 26th - New Chemicals: Getting the Right Data, and Getting the Data Right
  Under the new legislation pending in Congress to reform the nation's ineffectual chemicals regulation law, it would be easy to paralyze the Environmental Protection Agency under mountains of data -- if it's not done right.

  The discussion draft circulated by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is currently being dissected and debated by industry, environmental and consumer groups, would require EPA to assess 300 existing "priority" chemicals every two years, evaluating them against a strict, health-based safety standard [section 6(b)].

  Unfortunately, there's a possibility that the standard applied to new chemicals and new chemical uses, at least as the draft is currently written, could be interpreted in a way that would make it nowhere near as strict. Keep reading.



• April 23rd - R-Rated Chemicals: This is Reform?
  Is it possible that Congress would pass a bill allowing new chemicals on the market that might be even less safe than the ones we have now, to be used in products we buy and use everyday - even in children's products?

  Unfortunately, that's exactly what the newly released House discussion draft of a chemicals regulation reform bill would do. It would be like strictly monitoring your older son's TV watching while letting his kid sister take in an R-rated feature at the theatre. Keep reading.

• April 21st - News to Use, For All of Us
  After nearly 35 years with basically no information on just about any chemical, is it possible to have too much "minimal" information? Sounds hard to imagine, but some apparently think so.

  Here's the issue. Under the newly-released House draft of a chemical regulation reform bill, EPA would identify the 300 chemicals of greatest concern, the so-called priority list. Industry would then have 18 months to submit a "minimum data set" (basically a rundown of what's already known about each chemical) for every compound on that list. This doesn't seem to be a particularly contentious proposal.

  The House discussion draft then requires EPA to complete its regulatory review of those 300 compounds within two years. This is where it gets a little tricky. Keep reading.

• April 20th - What We - and EPA - Need to Know
  When it comes to protecting us from toxic substances, current law has produced an information wasteland -- where meaningful science on chemical risks is virtually nowhere to be found.

  Rewriting the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to fix this problem is a cornerstone of any meaningful reform. So it's not surprising that the House Energy and Commerce Committee made this issue the focus of the first of a series of meetings it's hosting to review the "discussion draft" of a reform bill it released last week (April 14). It's called the Toxic Chemicals Safety Act of 2010.

  Lack of data must never again be an obstacle to protecting public health. To achieve that goal, EPA must have absolute and unencumbered authority to ask for any study that it needs to better understand the risks of any chemical. Keep reading.

• April 15th - Lautenberg Plan: Safety First
  In the House, meanwhile, a key committee rolled out its "discussion draft" of a parallel proposal. Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman and Commerce, and Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), chairman of the Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee, will begin hammering out a final version that could go to a floor vote later this year.

  Sen. Lautenberg's Safe Chemicals Act will bring order to a chemical industry whose products have largely escaped regulation for the past three decades. With virtually no rules governing the safety of chemicals, American babies are born pre-polluted, their bodies laced with as many as 300 industrial compounds, pollutants, plastics, pesticides and other substances that threaten public health.

  Lautenberg puts this problem in the crosshairs by making protection of children and other vulnerable populations the cornerstone of American environmental health policy. Keep reading.

Stay tuned for more news, analysis and action opportunities as this process moves ahead - on EWG's Kid-Safe Chemicals Campaign Blog.

By Nils Bruzelius, EWG Executive Editor

That's why a broad array of organizations that care about people's health came together this week to thank Administrator Lisa P. Jackson of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for her principled and vigorous efforts to advance comprehensive reform of our broken system for regulating hazardous chemicals.

In a letter dated March 10, they wrote to her:

"We welcome the core principles you announced on September 29, 2009 in San Francisco that outlined the Obama Administration's plan to overhaul the nation's chemical regulatory program and give EPA greater authority to protect the public.

Our organizations and supporters applaud the Administration's intention to transform our country's chemical regulatory system and decision to make TSCA reform a top priority."

The letter's signers, who represent millions of members and supporters, have been urging members of Congress in hearings and through personal contact to introduce and take prompt action on a bill to correct the well-known failings of the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act.

Environmental Working Group, which led the effort to recognize Administrator Jackson's initiative and commitment to reform, has long advocated for a thorough rewriting of the outdated law. In particular, EWG is urging adoption of a risk-based approach that gives priority to controlling all substances known to contaminate human bodies, particularly those chemicals detected in umbilical cord blood of newborn infants - the most vulnerable members of society.

So thank you, Lisa Jackson. We'll help in every way we can.

The full text of the letter and list of signers follows.

* * *

The Honorable Lisa P. Jackson
Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Respectfully,

Allergy Kids
American Academy of Environmental Medicine
Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses
Autism One
Autism Society of Illinois
Autism Society of Western New York
Breast Cancer Network of Western New York
Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future Citizens for Environmental Justice
Community Against Pollution
Deep South Center for Environmental Justice
Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology
Developmental Delay Resources
Environmental Working Group
First Signs, Inc.
Iowa Breast Cancer Edu-Action
National Autism Association
Oregon Environmental Council
Plains Justice
Schafer Autism Report
The Rachel Carson Homestead Association
The United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation
US Autism & Asperger Association

By Alex Formuzis, EWG Director of Communications

A comprehensive plan to reform the nation's primary law responsible for regulating the use of industrial chemicals is about to be introduced in Congress.

The question of which substances the federal government should target first was part of the discussion at a hearing before the US House Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection last week.

PBTs are bad, but they're hardly alone
Committee members and witnesses focused their attention on a certain group of chemicals commonly called persistent and bioaccumulative toxic substances, or PBTs.

These are among the most notorious and dangerous chemicals ever put into commerce, which include DDT, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), the Teflon chemicals perfluorooctanyl sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluoroctanoic acid (PFOA), brominated flame retardants, lead and mercury compounds and dioxins.

But PBTs are just some of the 83,000 chemicals used as ingredients in virtually everything available for purchase. Other notable contaminants the public is exposed to in mass include the plastics chemical bisphenol A (BPA), the rocket fuel component perchlorate and phthalates; a chemical with such a wide reach it's used in everything from food wrappers, makeup, toys, cleaning products and upholstery.

Why is in utero exposure so very important?
How on earth is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) supposed to decide which chemicals it should review first to decide if they pose a risk to people?

Here's a thought: EPA should start where human contamination begins. In utero.

We now know chemicals cross the placenta and become a collection of additives in the blood that pumps through the rapidly developing fetus at the precise time the brain and nervous systems are beginning to build. EWG has documented in utero chemical contamination through a series of lab tests that found hundreds of industrial pollutants, including but not limited to PBTs in the blood of babies in the womb.

Cord blood contamination should be the guiding principle for the EPA when it establishes a list of chemicals that will come under scrutiny first. If a synthetic chemical, PBT or otherwise, turns up in babies it must be thoroughly examined for potential risks to human health. If it fails to stand up to a rigorous scientific prosecution then it should be banned.

Read EWG's letter to the US Representative Bobby Rush
Please read the written comments my colleagues Richard Wiles and Jane Houlihan provided to the Chairman of the House subcommittee, Representive Bobby L. Rush.

Ever wonder if you can really, truly make a difference in an effort for national policy reform? I mean, it's a big country, right?

YES. YES. YES.

And when we speak together, we're even more effective.

Tell Congress to put toxics on its "to do" list NOW
Join 55,000 other concerned Americans who have already signed this historic petition.

Let's make it crystal clear that you want an effective national chemicals policy that protects human health, especially our children who are most affected by toxic chemicals. We know you're frustrated by the current system. So let's change it.

Numbers talk: 75,000 signatures is our goal
We want to deliver this petition to key lawmakers on Capitol Hill with 75,000 signatures - including yours - to show them how BIG and PASSIONATE this kid-safe movement has become. Can you help us reach our goal in the next two weeks? It's easy to sign and share - and extremely important to our success.

The time is right now
There is a political window of opportunity to move the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act forward in 2010, but in the current political climate, windows close quickly and unpredictably. If we don't give it our absolute all NOW, when the political momentum is there, we may lose this chance.

Sign it, share it
This issue is far too important to let Congress do nothing. We need your help - by signing and sharing the petition - to get the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act on the Congressional "to-do" list. Preferably at the top.

In the past few weeks, EWG staff testified five times to support strong chemical policies at the state and federal levels: in the District of Columbia, Maryland, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and the US Senate.

For an overview (and video) of the February 4th US Senate hearing where EWG President Ken Cook testified about the importance of human biomonitoring and the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act, head over to our Kid-Safe policy blog.

EWG staffers put our heads together to come up with this list of bad news environmental stories of the last decade that people might have missed. But there were plenty of big stories that hardly anyone could have missed, such as climate change. What's on your list of the biggest environmental stories of the last 10 years?

1. Secret Gas Drilling Chemical Almost Kills Colorado Nurse
Doctors ran into a medical mystery -- and a stone wall from industry -- when they tried to find what was in a gas drilling chemical that nearly killed a Colorado nurse. Aren't you glad that Congress exempted these "fracking" chemicals from regulation under the Safe Water Drinking Act?

2. Intersex Fish Turn Up All Over
Are you a boy or are you a girl? That's the question that scientists are asking as they study the organs of supposedly male fish from coast to coast and find eggs in many of them. The chief suspects: endocrine-disrupting pollutants that even in tiny amounts can mimic hormones and affect sexual development.

3. Prescription Drugs in Your Drinking Water
Take a swallow and call me in the morning. Antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones - they've all turned up in tests of drinking water around the country. Could there be health risks from decades of drinking water laced with combinations of potent drugs?

4. And Rocket Fuel, Too
Perchlorate -- the stuff is used in rocket fuel and explosives and turns up not just in water but also in milk, lettuce, other foods - and in our bodies. It's been linked to thyroid problems in pregnant women, newborns and infants. The EPA is reconsidering its earlier decision not to regulate it in water. Stand by.

5. Ethanol -- Not Just Bad Energy Policy
There are a lot of reasons to question the drive for biofuels, especially corn-based ethanol, but there has been much less attention paid to what it means for air pollution and health. For people who like to breathe clean air, the balance doesn't look promising.

6. Non-stick, No-Stain and No-Good
They were the miracle products that were supposed to make life easier - keeping spills from staining our couches and making it easy to clean our pots without scrubbing -- until it all went sour. Chemicals in the original Teflon and now off-the-market Scotchgard were linked to cancer and developmental problems. They have a way of polluting everything and they refuse to go away.

7. Monsanto Owns Corn (and also soybeans)
80% of the corn and 95% percent of the soybeans grown in America contain genes inserted by Monsanto scientists, and the company writes tough - and secret - licensing agreements to maintain control and lock out competitors. Now the Justice Department and some states are thinking these practices might violate anti-trust laws. Turnips, anyone?

8. Occupational Hazard: Microwave Popcorn
This fun food turned to be no fun for people who make it. A strange lung malady that sickened workers in plants that make microwave popcorn was traced to a widely used butter flavoring. And one popcorn-crazy consumer was felled, too. It took a while, but OSHA finally took a look, and the stuff is being phased out.

9. Dead (Zone) on Arrival
In the Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere, vast expanses of ocean have been turned into biological deserts as fertilizer runoff from farms washes downstream and nourish runaway algae growth, which deplete most of the oxygen when the tiny organisms die and decompose. The Gulf dead zone has more than doubled in size since the 1980s - accelerated by the boom in crops grown to make biofuels. In 2009, it was smaller than predicted, but more intense, in 2009.

10. The (Not So) Great Pacific Trash Gyre
It's hard to spot from the water or even from space, but an estimated 3.5 million tons of mostly plastic trash from all over the world floats just below the surface of the Pacific, swirling slowly around in an area of circular currents twice the size of Texas. It's devastating to birds and sea creatures that think the plastic bits are food. It's time to stop adding to the mess - and then see if there's any way to clean it up.

What stories top your list of the decade's biggest environmental news??

By Lisa Frack

I'm a veteran of many a house party for change - and a big fan of the concept. In fact, I got started in online activism at a friend's Moms Rising house party, where we watched a short film and discussed how we could create change - in our own lives and in the public policies that govern them.

For some of us it was the beginning of some serious activism, for others it was more of a consciousness raising and a chance to connect with friends about important issues - all important outcomes.

Since these parties are such a fun, effective way to learn and get active on an issue that you care about, I want to share four ready-made house parties with you. All about toxics, of course. Something for everyone:

1. '10 Americans' party for Kid-Safe chemicals As you know if you're a regular Enviroblog reader, EWG is working hard to pass the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act in Congress (because the current law is broke, broke, broke). But we can't do it without your help!

   One effective way to inspire grassroots involvement is for supporters like you to host a house party to inform and inspire your social network to speak up, too. A cornerstone of the party is our '10 Americans' video about toxics policy (it's entertaining, I promise!) - so you can inform and inspire your guests at the press of a button.

   It's simple, and we'll help you every step of the way. Just email Lisa here.

2. Healthy Home Party
   Healthy Child, Healthy World bring us this kit - with a short video on creating healthy environments for children - to makeover your home. As they say:
   

   We would like to help you raise awareness and action through community education. With the information we provide, you'll be able to educate and empower your family, friends, schools, and community to protect children's health and development from the common contaminants we are exposed to every day. YOU can make a big difference and inspire those around you to take Easy Steps to create safer and healthier living environments.

3. Green cleaning party
   Women's Voices for the Earth has it all figured out to help you bring together your friends and family to make non-toxic cleaning products and learn about household cleaning chemicals, which, like tens of thousands of chemicals found in the consumer marketplace, are available with virtually no information on the potential consequences for human health and little oversight by the government.

Get your kit and take a look at some parties in the spotlight.


4. Safe cosmetics party
   The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has a party kit for guests to make their own cosmetics and learn about the policy issues related to cosmetics safety.

Know of any others? Have you hosted one a house party with a purpose? We'd love to hear about it.

[A big thanks to cafemama for yet another perfect pic]