{"id":267371,"date":"2010-02-02T13:55:22","date_gmt":"2010-02-02T18:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/nanotechnology\/?p=412"},"modified":"2010-02-02T13:55:22","modified_gmt":"2010-02-02T18:55:22","slug":"chemical-industry-%e2%80%9castroturf%e2%80%9d-group-pads-membership-with-agribusinesses-%e2%80%93-even-though-tsca-doesn%e2%80%99t-regulate-ag-chemicals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/267371","title":{"rendered":"Chemical industry \u201castroturf\u201d group pads membership with agribusinesses \u2013 even though TSCA doesn\u2019t regulate ag chemicals!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Richard Denison, Ph.D.<\/a>, is a Senior Scientist.<\/em><\/p>\n

The chemical industry\u2019s fake grassroots group formed to feign broad support for its version of reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) \u2013 the Coalition for Chemical Safety<\/a>, issued a press release today<\/a> touting that it\u2019s surpassed 150 members.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I blogged earlier<\/a> about how some of the small businesses it has enlisted apparently weren\u2019t told about the Coalition backers\u2019 actual positions on toxic chemicals.<\/p>\n

Now a review of the 150 members<\/a> that have allowed the Coalition to meet its latest \u201cmilestone\u201d reveals it has supplemented unwitting small businesses with dozens of agriculture-related companies and associations \u2013 despite the fact that TSCA doesn\u2019t regulate ag chemicals!<\/p>\n

Who knew that growing astroturf requires pesticides??<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

At least 40 of the Coalition\u2019s members are clearly in the farm, landscaping or seed business \u2013 begging the question of whether they\u2019ve been attracted to sign up by the Coalition backers wrongly claiming TSCA reform might lead to bans on pesticides.<\/p>\n

More generally, the Coalition\u2019s release makes clear it\u2019s more than willing to play the \u201cchemical ban\u201d card to scare up members. One choice quote: \u201cThe Virginia State Police Association (VSPA) joined the Virginia Coalition for Chemical Safety to help ensure that our troopers have access to the very best safety equipment available,\u201d says VSPA\u2019s Executive Director.<\/p>\n

Of course, real TSCA reform is not about halting the use of chemicals \u2013 it\u2019s about driving the replacement of dangerous chemicals with safe ones. It\u2019s about integrating the heretofore largely missing ingredient of health and environmental safety \u2013 alongside traditional considerations of performance, cost and consumer needs \u2013 into all decisions made about which chemicals and products our nation makes, uses and sells. It\u2019s about ensuring the market has robust information needed to inform those decisions, and government has the authority to distinguish between safe and unsafe chemicals.<\/p>\n

If the Coalition is serious about TSCA reform, it ought to embrace all aspects of the platform of a real<\/em><\/strong> grassroots coalition calling for comprehensive reform \u2013 Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families<\/a><\/em><\/strong> \u2013 which doesn\u2019t depend on misleading or scaring potential members to get them to sign up.<\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist. The chemical industry\u2019s fake grassroots group formed to feign broad support for its version of reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) \u2013 the Coalition for Chemical Safety, issued a press release today touting that it\u2019s surpassed 150 members.\u00a0 I blogged earlier about how some of the […]<\/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-267371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267371","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=267371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}