Top Environmental Legal Officials under Last Four Presidents Support Udall-Vitter Chemical Safety Reform Bill

(WASHINGTON - March 24, 2015) Top environmental legal officials who served over the last three decades have joined together to support the chemical safety reform bill authored by Sens. Tom Udall (D-NM) and David Vitter (R-LA). The legislation is the best chance in a generation to fix the nation’s broken chemical regulatory system, which now leaves Americans unprotected from potentially hazardous chemicals in products from cleaning supplies to clothing.

In a March 18, 2015 letter [PDF] sent to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the attorneys called the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (S. 697, “The Lautenberg Act”) a “substantial and necessary improvement over the current Toxic Substances Control Act.” They specifically reviewed the new bill’s safety standard, finding it would fix the problems that have virtually paralyzed EPA from acting to restrict dangerous chemicals for decades under TSCA.

Notably, one signer, E. Donald Elliott, served as EPA’s General Counsel at the time when a federal appeals court heard arguments in the landmark Corrosion Proof Fittings case—a decision that made clear the inadequacy of the current law by tossing out EPA’s asbestos regulation.

Americans are exposed to thousands of chemicals every day, and only a small fraction have ever been adequately tested for safety. Our nation’s primary chemical safety law, the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), hasn’t been updated for almost 40 years. The law is so badly broken that EPA is powerless to restrict even known deadly carcinogens such as asbestos, which kills 10,000 Americans every year.

The Lautenberg Act would give EPA new powers to require testing, review new and existing chemicals, and restrict those found to be dangerous chemicals. In cases where EPA did not choose to review a chemical, states would still be empowered to take action.

The environmental lawyers said they believed, based on their extensive experience at EPA, that the bill’s “amended safety standard will provide EPA with greater authority to address potentially risky chemical substances in commerce.”

The former officials writing the letter were:

• E. Donald Elliott, Assistant Administrator and General Counsel, Environmental Protection Agency, 1989-1991
• Scott Fulton, General Counsel, Environmental Protection Agency, 2009-2013
• Marianne L. Horinko, Acting Administrator, July-November 2003, Assistant Administrator, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, Environmental Protection Agency, 2001-2004
• Roger Martella, General Counsel, Acting General Counsel, and Principal Deputy General Counsel, Environmental Protection Agency, 2005-08, U.S. Department of Justice, Environment & Natural Resources Division, 1998-2005
• Ronald J. Tenpas, Assistant Attorney General, U. S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division, 2007-2009

The full text of the letter is available here [PDF].