Safe Chemicals Act of 2010
Good news! The Safe Chemicals Act of 2010 was introduced on Thursday,
April 15th by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Representatives Bobby
Rush (D-IL) and Henry Waxman (D-CA). This is the first draft of landmark legislation to
overhaul the Toxic
Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA), which is our nation's outdated and ineffective law regulating toxic chemicals.
Some of the biggest reforms in the bill are:
- increasing safety standards to protect vulnerable populations, such as pregnant women and children
- requiring chemical companies to develop and make publicly available basic health and safety information for all chemicals
- creating a new program to strengthen protections for environmental justice communities, or communities identified as "hot spots" with increased exposure
This is a victory for many environmental health coalitions around the nation. We'd like to give credit in particular to the SAFER States Coalition, and the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition that have worked so hard to get this bill introduced. They continue to work with Congress to address some major gaps in the bill so that the law will protect our health from many dangerous chemicals. For more information on the bill and areas for improvement, check out this summary. More importantly, we can help by taking action to tell Congress how important these amendments are in protecting our health from toxics.
