A state effort to create a database of toxic chemicals should not be put on the back burner.
There is such a thing as better living through
chemistry, but only if it's green. As it is, the toxic substances in your
sunscreen, plastic bottles, mattresses and a list of other consumer products far
too long to cite may be killing you.
Chemical manufacturers don't have to
disclose much, if any, information on the health hazards of their products, so
shockingly little is known about the 83,000 chemicals listed under the U.S.
Toxic Substances Control Act. Whenever evidence surfaces that one of these
chemicals is causing cancer or scrambling infants' brains, there's a push by
lawmakers to ban it. Last year, California regulators announced a better
solution: Under the Department of Toxic Substances Control's Green
Chemistry Initiative, the state would create a comprehensive list of
chemicals made, used and sold here and seek to replace the dangerous ones with
safe and sustainable (i.e., green) alternatives.
It's an extremely
important effort with national and even international implications, and Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has rightly been lauded for backing it. Yet he also
deserves blame for seemingly allowing it to lapse.
After months of
hearings and information-gathering, the department was supposed to release its
final recommendations July 1, but it still hasn't produced even the draft
version that was due in the spring. The reason for the delay is anyone's guess,
but political insiders fear that pressure from the chemical industry has
prompted the Schwarzenegger administration to put the initiative on the back
burner. We hope that's not true because every day's delay means more death and
suffering for Californians exposed to products that never should have come in
contact with humans or other living things.
Once regulators finally weigh
in, they should address a few key requirements, without which the initiative
would be toothless and ineffective. First, there must be a publicly accessible
database ofall the known health and environmental effects of chemicals. Second,
the state must be empowered to require information from manufacturers about what
chemicals are in their products and to ban those that have proven ill effects,
and it should have the ability to test suspect chemicals
independently.
Chemical makers can be expected to fiercely oppose these
steps, on the grounds that they're expensive and could reveal trade secrets.
There is only one possible public response: Tough. The Victorian notion that
industry should be free to poison people for profit won't fly in the 21st
century.
