Safer Alternatives Bill receives a "favorable report"
The Bisphenol A (BPA) public comment period is over, and there is a good chance for a positive outcome for this regulation. However, BPA is only one chemical out of hundreds that we come into contact with
everyday. Our government should require companies to use safer alternatives to protect us from many of the harmful chemicals that we are exposed to in our lives. Innovation should be encouraged to keep us as safe from toxic hazards as current science allows.
Cue the Safer Alternatives Bill!
The Safer Alternatives Bill, An Act for a Competitive Economy Through Safer Alternatives to Toxic Chemicals (H-4865), is sponsored by Representative Jay Kaufman (D-Lexington) and Senator Steven Tolman (D-Brighton). It will create a pragmatic and flexible program in Massachusetts to replace toxic chemicals with safer alternatives, wherever feasible.
In this economy, the bill is needed more than ever. The Safer Alternatives program will help Massachusetts businesses stay competitive on the global market which is rapidly moving towards a demand for safer products and services.The bill spent months in the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture, but was released with a favorable report yesterday. Unfortunately, it did not leave the Environment Committee without some changes.
The main points of the bill are still intact:
- Chemicals will be categorized by how hazardous they are
- High hazard chemicals can be selected as "priority chemical substances" which will set in motion a process to replace them with safer alternatives wherever feasible
- For each priority chemical substance, uses that lead to exposures for workers or children will be chosen.
- For those uses, the Toxics Use Reduction Institute will research which alternatives are available and whether they are feasible and safer.
- Wherever feasible safer alternatives are available, companies will be required to phase out the use of the toxic chemical and replace it with a safer alternative.
- All of this will apply to both industrial uses and consumer products.
Some of the changes that were made are compromises that will slow down the implementation of the bill or leave out important sectors, and we will work to strengthen some or all these provisions as the bill moves forward. Here are the most significant ones:
- The funding mechanism for the program was taken out. At the outset, businesses will not be charged fees for using toxic chemicals which means that there is no income to run the program.
- Instead, a study of how to fund the program will be done in the first year, and the program itself will be started in 2015.
- In the meantime, three chemicals will be addressed through the program: cadmium (in children's products), trichloroethylene (in industrial degreasers), and nonylphenol ethoxylates (in household cleaning products).
- Medical devices are exempt from the program
The bill now needs to be passed by both the House and the Senate before this legislative session ends at the end of the month, and there are many times along the way that the bill can and will change again. With support from the right people on Beacon Hill, the bill can pass this year.
We will let you know more about the bill's progress, and what you can do to help it along, in the coming days. If you wish to take action now, check out our current Action Alert.
One final note on BPA: we would just like to say thank you again to the 674 supporters who submitted a comment to the Department of Public Health (DPH) with our online petition. Your comments were delivered and can be viewed on the DPH website along with all the other comments that were submitted (which were overwhelmingly in favor of expanding the regulation). The Public Health Council will make its final decision about the regulation in September, so we will let you know the outcome at that time.
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