{"id":238615,"date":"2009-12-22T17:13:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-22T22:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:feeds.feedburner.com:\/\/e018375ff7a95f1005ae46562e315986"},"modified":"2009-12-22T17:13:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-22T22:13:00","slug":"protecting-human-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/238615","title":{"rendered":"Protecting Human Health"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nearly four decades after the passage of the Clean Air Act, more than half of all Americans still live in areas that don&rsquo;t meet clean-air standards. <a rel=\"nofollow\">Dirty air<\/a> increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer and respiratory problems. While everyone suffers some harm, the 22 million Americans with asthma are particularly vulnerable.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\">Industrial chemicals<\/a> are accumulating in our bodies, as well as in animals, plants, land and water yet we know very little about their safety.<\/p>\n<p>Human health and the environment are inextricably intertwined. Environmental Defense Fund is working to tackle these issues, the most serious threats impacting our nation today:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>unhealthy air and<\/li>\n<li>exposure to toxic chemicals.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Breakthrough: Requiring chemical testing<\/h3>\n<p>Of the more than 80,000 man-made chemicals in use in the U.S., only about 200 have been required to be tested for safety. Current laws are tilted so drastically in favor of the manufacturers that only one group of chemicals, PCBs, has ever been banned.<\/p>\n<p>The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the nation&rsquo;s main law governing chemicals, places the burden for proving chemicals are harmful on the U.S. government. That means manufacturers can bring chemicals to the marketplace without adequate safety testing.<\/p>\n<p>EDF has long advocated for <a rel=\"nofollow\">chemicals policy reform<\/a>. Working with our <a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/www.saferchemicals.org\/\">Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families<\/a> coalition partners, we have put forward a framework for legislative reform that has been endorsed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) &mdash; and is the basis for new legislation currently moving forward in both houses of Congress.<\/p>\n<p>The coming year will be a watershed in our decades long campaign to protect our nation from harmful chemicals and other toxic substances.<\/p>\n<h3>Success Story: Cleaning up petroleum refining complexes<\/h3>\n<p>Plants that refine petroleum emit the most deadly forms of air pollution. Pollution pouring from a refinery stack is regulated by the EPA; however, these refineries are often part of larger chemical complexes. Neighboring factories manufacturing plastics and other substances emit the same dangerous pollution, but are held to a lower clean air standard.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to pressure from EDF&rsquo;s air quality experts, President Obama has agreed to set aside inadequate safety recommendations from the Bush administration and conduct new research that evaluates safety based on total emissions from a complex, not just those from the refinery.<\/p>\n<h3>Goals for 2010<\/h3>\n<p><b>Cleaner air for U.S. ports. <\/b>Container ships, tankers and other large sea-going vessels burn low grade &ldquo;residual fuel&rdquo; or &ldquo;bunker fuel.&rdquo; This major source of air pollution imperils the health of more than 87 million Americans who live in ports and coastal communities. EDF has proposed the creation of <a rel=\"nofollow\">Emission Control Areas<\/a> (ECAs) to dramatically improve fuel quality and reduce harmful pollution by requiring all ocean-going ships that come within 200 miles of U.S. coasts meet the strongest international clean air standards.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year the EPA submitted an application to the International Maritime Organization (the international body that governs global shipping regulations) to begin creating ECAs in 2010. Over the coming months EDF will continue to provide scientific data and technical expertise to help the U.S. government make the cas efor cleaner ports.<\/p>\n<p><b>Safer products for consumers. <\/b>As legislation to reform our nation&rsquo;s chemical safety regulations moves through Congress, EDF is also working on-the-ground to deliver safer, greener products to Americans. Working in <a rel=\"nofollow\">partnership with Walmart<\/a>, EDF has developed a web-based system to categorize 100,000 products for toxicity, carcinogenicity and hazardous waste.<\/p>\n<p>In the coming year, Walmart and EDF will begin evaluating everyday products like shampoo, laundry detergents and air fresheners for chemicals of concerns. Walmart will begin incorporating this data into its buying decisions, meaning manufacturers that can reduce or eliminate harmful chemicals from their products will have a competitive advantage over those that do not.<\/p>\n<p><b>Restoring science to ozone safety standards. <\/b>In 2008 the Bush administration established an ozone health standard that was substantially lower than recommended by EPA&rsquo;s panel of expert advisors on the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC). Then, in an unprecedented move, Bush&rsquo;s regulatory czar ordered EPA scientists to scrap a separate science-based ozone standard to protect crops, forests and other plants hard hit by ground-level ozone.<\/p>\n<p>EDF and other organizations protested the move and successfully convinced the Obama administration to overturn the Bush standards and issue <a rel=\"nofollow\">new standards<\/a> based on CASAC recommendations. We will be working with EPA to ensure the new standards provide the greatest human health protections possible from smog and other ground-level pollutions.<\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/environmentaldefense?a=hxNgfymJ7Is:Ro2eosQjYao:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/environmentaldefense?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/environmentaldefense?a=hxNgfymJ7Is:Ro2eosQjYao:2mJPEYqXBVI\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/environmentaldefense?d=2mJPEYqXBVI\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/environmentaldefense?a=hxNgfymJ7Is:Ro2eosQjYao:7Q72WNTAKBA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/environmentaldefense?d=7Q72WNTAKBA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/environmentaldefense?a=hxNgfymJ7Is:Ro2eosQjYao:u0Zhe-nyOHo\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/environmentaldefense?d=u0Zhe-nyOHo\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/environmentaldefense?a=hxNgfymJ7Is:Ro2eosQjYao:dnMXMwOfBR0\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/environmentaldefense?d=dnMXMwOfBR0\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/environmentaldefense\/~4\/hxNgfymJ7Is\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nearly four decades after the passage of the Clean Air Act, more than half of all Americans still live in areas that don&rsquo;t meet clean-air standards. Dirty air increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer and respiratory problems. While everyone suffers some harm, the 22 million Americans with asthma are particularly vulnerable. Industrial chemicals [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4273,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4273"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}