March, 18 2020, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Erin Fitzgerald, Earthjustice press secretary, 415-283-2323
Trump's EPA Sued for Concealing Health Studies, Violating Its Chemical Laws
Investigation shows Toxic Substances Control Act is constantly ignored.
WASHINGTON
Today, Earthjustice and the Environmental Defense Fund released a joint investigation showing how Trump's Environmental Protection Agency on a regular basis violates the Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA, which governs the manufacture, use, and distribution of chemicals. From August of 2016 through April of 2019, Earthjustice and EDF reviewed over 200 new chemical applications in detail, as well as all notices EPA published to inform the public of the applications it received from 2016 through early 2020, or about 1,700 applications.
The investigation unveiled that:
- EPA doesn't alert the public when a new chemical is under review and may soon be approved to go on the market, as required by law. For approximately one in every six applications, the agency didn't publish the notice until after the chemical was approved, preventing anyone from having a chance to weigh in and potentially prevent a toxic chemical, like a new toxic PFAS, from reaching the homes or workplaces of millions of people.
- EPA allows companies to conceal crucial information about chemicals under review, especially health and safety information. EPA is obligated to release to the public all health and safety information submitted with an application. Yet, EPA regularly allows chemical companies to claim that health studies are confidential business information, or CBI, so critical information is blacked out in large part or in full.
- EPA doesn't audit companies' CBI claims to determine whether they are warranted, encouraging companies' unlawful attempts to hide information that should be public. EPA is obligated to review at least 25 percent of CBI claims made by chemical manufacturers, and then to publish a determination whether the information is actually entitled to CBI protection. Since TSCA was amended in 2016, EPA has completed such reviews for only 27 new chemical applications.
This report comes as health and environmental organizations represented by Earthjustice sued Trump's EPA for violating TSCA. According to TSCA, the public has a right to know and provide input about new chemicals EPA is reviewing. Instead, EPA repeatedly and unlawfully conceals documents, and ignores other transparency rules. This unlawful secrecy prevents the public from weighing in before EPA allows new, potentially dangerous chemicals into commerce. In fact, just last year Trump's EPA approved without restrictions and while hiding all studies, a new PFAS, a member of a class of nearly indestructible chemicals linked to birth defects, infertility and cancer. The agency approves hundreds of chemicals in a similar fashion. At times it notifies the public of a new chemical after a chemical has been approved.
Earthjustice is representing the Environmental Health Strategy Center, Center for Environmental Health, Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund, and the Sierra Club.
In 2016, Congress reformed TSCA for the first time in 40 years. Updates require EPA to follow certain rules to transparently review every new chemical before it can be manufactured.
"Congress reformed TSCA just a few years ago to protect people's health from new chemicals. It said, unequivocally, that the public has a right to know about these chemicals before they are put out on the market," said Tosh Sagar, Earthjustice attorney. "Trump's EPA instead hides health and safety studies and other key information, just so that industry can have it easier. Ignoring TSCA's transparency requirements makes it more likely that dangerous chemicals are reaching our homes and workplaces."
"Unleashing chemicals into the market without proper vetting is like opening Pandora's box," the coalition suing the EPA said in a statement. "EPA must stop hiding key information about the chemicals it is reviewing and put public health above the desires of the chemical industry."
Late last year, the coalition threatened to sue EPA for widespread violations of TSCA's transparency requirements. In response the agency said it would make some changes, but these actions were insufficient to address the continuing lack of disclosure. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
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"The Comstock Act must be repealed," said the Missouri Democrat.
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"The Comstock Act must be repealed," Bush (D-Mo.) wrote in a social media post on Tuesday as the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case brought by a group of anti-abortion doctors aiming to curtail access to mifepristone—a medication used in more than 60% of U.S. abortions.
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Bush's office said she was the first member of Congress to demand the law's repeal since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in the summer of 2022.
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The Biden Justice Department has argued that the Comstock Act "does not prohibit the mailing of certain drugs that can be used to perform abortions where the sender lacks the intent that the recipient of the drugs will use them unlawfully."
But the law has nevertheless been cited with growing frequency by far-right advocacy groups and judges following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
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During oral arguments on Tuesday, Justices Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas "repeatedly invoked the Comstock Act," The Washington Postreported, "pressing lawyers about whether the 1873 federal law should apply to abortion drugs sent through the mail today."
The justices' comments raised concerns that they could try to resurrect the Comstock Act in their coming ruling in the mifepristone case.
"While the Biden administration has issued guidance saying that the federal government
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Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive 2024 Republican nominee, has expressed support for a national abortion ban.
Jezebel's Susan Rinkunas wrote Tuesday that "enforcing a Victorian-era law would be deeply unpopular and Democrats have a chance to sound the alarm, take action in both chambers, and run on it."
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Last September, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks "asserted that the development of all-domain, attributable autonomy systems (ADA2) is an essential way for the Pentagon to maintain its comparative cutting-edge and keep up with the technological advancements of other states," notes the letter, which was addressed to her and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
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"Autonomous weapons are inherently dehumanizing and unethical, no matter whether a human is 'ultimately' responsible for the use of force or not."
Public Citizen and the 13 other organizations argued that "this is no place for strategic ambiguity. Autonomous weapons are inherently dehumanizing and unethical, no matter whether a human is 'ultimately' responsible for the use of force or not."
Deploying lethal weapons that rely on artificial intelligence (AI) "in battlefield conditions necessarily means inserting them into novel conditions for which they have not been programmed, an invitation for disastrous outcomes," the groups warned. "'Swarms' of the sort envisioned by Replicator pose even heightened risks, because of the unpredictability of how autonomous systems will function in a network. And the mere ambiguity of the U.S. position on autonomous weapons risks spurring a catastrophic arms race."
"We believe the Department of Defense should declare its opposition to the development and deployment of autonomous weapons," the coalition concluded. "However, even if you are not prepared to make that declaration, we strongly urge you to clarify that the Replicator Initiative will not employ autonomous weapons."
In addition to Public Citizen, the coalition included the American Friends Service Committee, Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network, Backbone Campaign, Demand Progress Education Fund, Fight for the Future, Future of Life, National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, RootsAction.org, United Church of Christ, the Value Alliance, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom U.S., Win Without War, and World Beyond War.
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