Toxic chemical exposure and mountaintop removal coal mining are two environmental issues that don’t get much press these days, but both are the subjects of positive attention after major steps forward in recent weeks. It sometimes seems that every energy and environmental issue from clean water to public transit has taken a back seat to climate change this Congress. However, this may be about to change.<\/p>\n
The presence of potentially toxic chemicals in our food, cleaners, and other consumer products that we encounter daily is a particularly disturbing environmental health challenge, and one that our current laws don’t deal with strongly enough. Luckily, both House<\/a> and Senate<\/a> overhauls of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the law that largely governs chemical health in the U.S., were introduced last week by Senator Lautenberg and Congressmen Rush and Waxman. In another positive development, the Obama administration also turned its attention to environmental health issues this week, launching an investigation into mining safety<\/a> following the tragic accident at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia. One aspect of coal mining that will definitely get a second look is the controversial and ecologically disastrous practice of mountaintop removal mining (MTR). This follows a recent EPA decision<\/a> to revamp the guidelines around MTR, focusing on ensuring that practices that endanger local water supplies do not continue undeterred. Some in the environmental community<\/a> even consider this decision more important for our long-term environmental health than the new auto efficiency standards announced the same week.<\/p>\n While it remains critical to pass comprehensive climate legislation (more to come next week on this!), we must not lose track of other environmental challenges. We need not just renewable energy, but also clean water and safe alternatives to toxic chemicals to achieve a vision of environmental health and sustainability. After all, it’s not just our carbon emissions but also the chemicals we use and the way we draw energy from the earth that have massive implications for human health today and for decades to come. We can do better for ecological and human health, and the events of the last few weeks are an important start. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Toxic chemical exposure and mountaintop removal coal mining are two environmental issues that don’t get much press these days, but both are the subjects of positive attention after major steps forward in recent weeks. It sometimes seems that every energy and environmental issue from clean water to public transit has taken a back seat to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-534785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534785","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\/4317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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TSCA was first passed in 1976 and the need to reform this vital but outdated law is clear; of the over 80,000 chemicals that we interact with on a regular basis, only a few thousand have been tested by the EPA and only 5 classes of chemicals have been banned. Reforming TSCA will allow the EPA and FDA to more effectively monitor the chemicals on the market and ensure their safety. It is well past time that we reform chemical policy to protect human and environmental health, and we’ll be closely monitoring the TSCA reform bills in the months to come. <\/p>\n