NEW YORK, New York, February 20, 2009 (ENS) – A coalition of state and national groups is dragging the makers of some of the nation’s best known brands of cleaners into a New York court, seeking disclosure of the chemical ingredients in their products and the health risks they pose.

Filed in State Supreme Court, this first case of its kind could have national implications. Independent studies into chemicals contained in cleaning products have found health effects ranging from asthma and allergies to hormone disruption.

But ingredient disclosure requirements are virtually non-existent in the United States – with one exception.

A forgotten New York state law requires household and commercial cleaner companies selling their products in New York to file semi-annual reports with the state listing the chemicals contained in their products and describing any company research on these chemicals’ health and environmental effects. But since the 1976 law was passed, companies have not filed a single report.

In the fall of 2008, environmental and public health advocates sent letters to more than a dozen companies asking them to comply with the law.

The companies targeted in the lawsuit filed Tuesday each ignored or refused this request. The defendant companies include Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive, Church and Dwight, and Reckitt-Benckiser.

“As the evidence showing the risks posed by chemicals in household cleaners continues to mount, people deserve to know whether the products they use to wash their dishes, launder their clothes, and clean their homes could be harmful,” said Earthjustice attorney Keri Powell, who is representing the plaintiff groups.

Several companies, including the California-based Sunshine Makers, Inc., which manufactures Simple Green products, complied with the request, filing reports with the State of New York for the first time.

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant, as they say. It’s time to dust off this important law and take the first step in giving consumers the information they need to protect themselves and their families,” said Powell.

The nonprofit public interest law firm Earthjustice is filing the lawsuit on behalf of Women’s Voices for the Earth, Environmental Advocates of New York, New York Public Interest Research Group, Riverkeeper, Sierra Club, and American Lung Association in New York.

“It’s outrageous that there are hidden ingredients in our cleaning products that may cause serious reproductive problems,” says Tracy Lakatua, executive director of Women’s Voices for the Earth.

“In our 2007 report ‘Household Hazards’ we identified hundreds of cleaning products containing ingredients linked to infertility, birth defects and asthma. Consumers deserve to know if these kinds of chemicals are in their products so they can make healthy choices for themselves and their families,” Lakutua said.

Household cleaners (Photo by Diana von Oertzen)

Cleaning chemicals can have severe impacts on respiratory health. Ethanolamines, chemicals used as surfactants in many cleaning products, have been shown to trigger asthma. And mixing common chemicals ammonia and chlorine creates toxic gases called chloramines causing shortness of breath, chest pain, wheezing, nausea, watery eyes, irritation and pneumonia and fluid in the lungs.

“The public is well aware of the dangerous health effects of outdoor air pollution, however inside our homes, air pollution levels can be two to five times higher than outdoors,” said Michael Seilback, vice president, public policy and communications for the American Lung Association in New York. “The public has a right to know whether the cleaning products they use in their homes contain harmful ingredients which could cause severe respiratory problems and trigger asthma attacks.”

The plaintiffs point to independent research that has documented “troubling hormone-disrupting qualities” of alkylphenol ethoxylates found in detergents, disinfectants, stain removers, and floor cleaners.

Some breakdown products of these manmade chemicals can mimic the hormone estrogen and when released into the environment are toxic to aquatic wildlife, the plaintiffs claim.

In laboratory studies, they cause breast cancer cells to proliferate, alter cells in the placenta, and cause reproductive abnormalities. The plaintiff groups say these studies raise concerns about whether alkylphenol ethoxylates may increase the risk of breast cancer, miscarriages, and reproductive damage in humans.

But the Alkylphenols and Ethoxylates Research Council, an industry group, argues in its June 2007 “Bulletin” that the assertion, made by the Sierra Club and other groups in a petition to the U.S. EPA, that numerous studies found endocrine disruptive effects well below the federal water quality criteria of 6.6 µg/L, is “misinformed and misleading.”

The surfectant nonylphenol has “weak estrogenic activity,” the council says, and “is ten thousand to one million times less potent than the natural estrogen found in human waste.”

Moreover, the council contends, “the nonylphenol ethoxylates used in commercial products are not estrogenic. This is an important distinction because these are the compounds (the ethoxylates) that are used in the workplace.”

Because many cleaning chemicals survive the sewage system and are released into streams, the plaintiff groups argue, there is growing concern that such chemicals pose a threat to fish and other aquatic wildlife, causing, among other things, the “feminization” of male fish.

“Manufacturers of household cleaning products have a responsibility to inform consumers and state regulators about chemicals in their products that may endanger human health or the environment,” said Laura Haight, senior environmental associate with New York Public Interest Research Group. “This is not only common sense; here in New York, it’s the law.”

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WASHINGTON, DC, November 24, 2008 (ENS) – A bipartisan group of six Northeastern governors is urging the Bush administration to abandon a plan that would relax pollution control requirements on power plants, saying the proposed rule would increase air pollution and threaten public health.

The concerns raised by the governors echo worries expressed by environmentalists and public health advocates, who also fear the Bush administration is keen to push through additional industry-friendly air rules before leaving office on January 20, 2009.

The regulation that has drawn the ire of the Northeastern governors would change a key part of the Clean Air Act’s New Source Review, NSR, program, which was created to ensure that owners of older power plants would modernize pollution controls when they make modifications to facilities that result in increased emissions.

NRG’s Montville power plant in Connecticut
runs on fuel oil and natural gas.
(Photo by C. Bergesen)

Currently, the NSR requirements are triggered when a power plant makes an upgrade that will result in an increase in annual emissions. The Bush administration’s proposal would change that test, exempting facilities from NSR if the modifications do not change in the plant’s hourly emissions.

“What might appear to be a simple word change could have an enormous – and ominous – impact,” said Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell. “Using hourly instead of annual emissions as the threshold for a New Source Review and the installation of pollution control devices stands the intent of the Clean Air Act on its head.”

Rell, along with fellow Republican governors Donald Carcieri of Rhode Island and James Douglas of Vermont, sent a letter on Friday outlining these concerns to the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

A trio of Democratic govenors – Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, John Lynch of New Hampshire and John Baldacci of Maine – also signed the letter.

The governors, repeating concerns raised by environmentalists, public health advocacy groups and state air pollution regulators, contend the proposal ignores reality.

The proposal would force federal regulators to “effectively disregard” the fact that although a modification to a plant may not boost hourly emissions, it would be very likely to boost annual emissions by allowing it to operate for longer hours, the governors wrote.

“This would result in a net detriment, not a net benefit, to public health and environmental quality,” according to the November 21 letter.

The letter also noted that when the Bush administration first proposed the rule change in October 2005, it argued that two other new rules developed to cut power plant emissions would ensure older plants installed newer pollution controls. But those two regulations – the Clean Air Interstate Rule and the Clean Air Mercury Rule – have been rejected by federal courts.

Dominion Energy’s Salem Harbor power
plant in Massachusetts burns coal and
heavy oil. (Photo by Daniel Fabricant)

If the rule change is finalized, Rell said her state would “pursue every available legal option” to overturn it.

“We have worked far too hard to improve the quality of the air we breathe,” Rell said. “We cannot – and will not – allow our progress to be undermined by the actions of an EPA that has lost sight of its mission.”

But the window for finalizing the new regulation is closing. The EPA has yet to send the rule to the White House Office of Management and Budget for final review.

But there are still at least a few weeks before the door closes on the possibility the rule becomes reality – any regulation deemed to have no significant economic impact enters into effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register.

This means the Bush administration has until at least December 19 to publish rules that will become final before President-elect Barack Obama takes office.

And regulatory experts believe that overturning rules finalized by that date could be difficult, potentially requiring EPA to go through another rulemaking process, something that could take months or even years.

The concern has environmentalists and public health groups on high alert, with worries over other possible changes to the NSR program, including a revision that would weaken Clean Air Act protections for national parks and wilderness areas.

That regulation centers on requirements originally developed to limit increases in air pollution that affects parks, wildlife refuges and other “Class 1″ scenic areas afforded special protections under the Clean Air Act.

Dominion Energy’s Brayton Point power
plant in Massachusetts burns coal, oil
and natural gas. (Photo by Alexey
Sergeev)

The proposal, which is currently under review by the Office of Management and Budget, would alter how regulators measure pollution levels near these areas.

Currently, levels are measured over three hour and 24 hour periods – the Bush administration’s change would call for levels to be averaged over a year.

Critics contend this would undercount the levels of air pollution, permitting power plants and other industrial facilities to emit more pollution. Opponents also worry the rule change could make it easier to build new power plants near parks and other Class 1 areas.

Documents publicized by the “Washington Post” last week indicate that at least half of the EPA’s 10 regional administrators have formally protested against the idea, raising concerns it would allow the significant deterioration of air quality in some of the nation’s most pristine areas.

The administration has ignored calls by several key lawmakers – including the new chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, California Democrat Henry Waxman, to abandon the plan.

The EPA could issue the New Source Review rule as soon as this week.

By J.R. Pegg

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SACRAMENTO, California, September 30, 2008 (ENS) – California will reduce or eliminate hazardous chemicals in consumer products and the environment under legislation signed Monday in Los Angeles by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The two bills enable the state to take more responsibility by 2011 for identifying and regulating dangerous chemicals and for analyzing safer alternatives.

Governor Schwarzenegger said the legislation “will spur a new era of research and innovation and promises to drive economic growth and competition in the green chemistry sector.”

“This bi-partisan package of environmental legislation propels California to the forefront of the nation and the world with the most comprehensive green chemistry program ever established,” the governor said.

“It also puts an end to the less effective ‘chemical-by-chemical’ bans of the past,” he said. “With these two bills, we will stop looking at toxics as an inevitable byproduct of industrial production. Instead they will be something that can be removed from every product in the design stage – protecting people’s health and our environment.”

The legislation is a response to growing concerns raised by scientists and public health advocates about unsafe and untested chemicals in consumer products.

While many consumer products include harmful substances, from lead-tainted toys to linens with toxic flame retardants, there is currently no state agency that has broad-based authority to take these products off the shelves or spur the development of safer alternatives.

The governor signed AB 1879 by Assemblymember Mike Feuer, a Los Angeles Democrat, and SB 509 by Senator Joe Simitian, a Palo Alto Democrat. Each legislator also co-authored the other’s companion measure, and they both worked with Republican lawmakers to craft the bills.

From left: Assemblymember Mike Feuer,
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and
Senator Joe Simitian at the bill signing
news conference. September 29, 2008
(Photo courtesy Office of the Governor)

Assemblymember Feuer said, “Instead of putting partisan politics first, we’re putting peoples’ health first.”

AB 1879 establishes authority for the state Department of Toxic Substances Control to develop regulations that create a process for identifying and prioritizing chemicals of concern and to create methods for analyzing alternatives. It allows DTSC to impose “restrictions or bans” on chemicals of concern.

The bill establishes a Green Ribbon Science Panel made up of experts to provide advice on scientific matters, chemical policy recommendations and implementation strategies, and to ensure implementation efforts are based on science.

It expands the role of the Environmental Policy Council, made up of the heads of all California Environmental Protection Agency boards and departments, to oversee implementation of the green chemistry program.

SB 509 creates an online Toxics Information Clearinghouse, a database to increase consumer knowledge about the toxicity and hazards of thousands of chemicals used in California every day.

“Californians currently have little if any access to information about the many thousands of chemicals that are commonly used in their products, released into the environment, or present at their workplaces,” said Senator Simitian. “The governor’s signature on SB 509 represents a significant breakthrough in the ultimate goal of protecting people from exposure to harmful products.”

Simitian chairs the Senate Environmental Quality Committee which held hearings in 2006 to discuss the findings of a report by the University of California’s California Policy Research Center entitled “Green Chemistry in California: A Framework for Leadership in Chemicals Policy and Innovation.” The report revealed that on any given day, the United States produces or imports 42 billon pounds of chemicals that may cause problems for human health and the environment.

The federal Consumer Product Safety Commission
recalled this toy boat today for
excessively high levels of lead.
(Photo courtesy CPSC)

The Chemical Industry Council of California is supportive of the new legislation, endorsing the comments of attorneys Todd Maiden and Eric McLaughlin of the council’s affiliate member, the law firm of ReedSmith.

“The most prominent features of California’s green chemistry law are its foundation on science and real-life assessment of chemical usage and exposure risk,” write Maiden and McLaughlin.

“Like all new regulations, those promulgated under the Green Chemistry law will impose operational changes and up-front compliance costs on the regulated community. However, change also presents new opportunity,” they write. “Compliance with California’s green chemistry law will likely reduce the costs of proper hazardous waste management and disposal, and satisfaction of workplace safety and health requirements. New opportunities to market products and processes as eco-friendly will also arise.”

Sierra Club California Director Bill Magavern helped to shape the legislation and he was present at the signing ceremony. He asserted Sierra Club’s position that, “Californians should be able to buy products for our households without having to worry that we’re bringing home hazardous substances that could harm our families.”

“We worked hard all year long with Mr. Feuer and our allies at Breast Cancer Fund, California League of Conservation Voters and Environment California to craft this landmark legislation,” Magavern said.

“These legislative measures are the beginning of a much-needed overhaul of the state’s broken chemicals management system,” said Jeanne Rizzo, R.N., president of the Breast Cancer Fund. “With the signing of these bills, our state is taking a historic step toward reducing Californians’ exposure to toxic chemicals.”

Advocates say they are committed to working with the governor over the coming months to implement the legislation. But they also urge the Schwarzenegger to release his Green Chemistry Initiative recommendations, which are expected to include a more comprehensive plan for chemical policy reform and the search for safer, less toxic chemicals.

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WASHINGTON, DC, March 12, 2008 (ENS) – The Bush administration has tightened federal air quality standards for smog-forming ozone, but not to the extent recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific advisers. The decision was met with dismay by state and local air quality officials, public health advocates and environmental groups, who contend the new rules fail to adequately protect the public or the environment from the serious health hazards of smog.

The head of the EPA defended his decision during a press call Wednesday, telling reporters he analyzed “the most recent scientific evidence” about the health and environmental impacts of ozone before making his decision.

“The bottom line is … I adhered to the law and I adhered to the science,” said EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.

The rules, which cover average concentrations of ground-level ozone over an eight-hour period, lower the current standard of 80-84 parts per billion, ppb, to 75 ppb.

A band of smog hangs over Los Angeles. (Photo credit unknown)

Ozone is formed in the presence of sunlight by reaction of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds. These pollutants are released by motor vehicles, power plants and other industrial facilities.

Linked to a slew of respiratory ailments, ground-level ozone – the main ingredient in smog – has major public health impacts and can damage ecosystems even at low levels.

Johnson told reporters that since EPA last updated the standards in 1997, scientific studies have indicated that the health impacts from ozone “are more significant and more certain than we previously thought.”

But critics remained unconvinced that Johnson has followed the science.

“EPA’s new standard is like lowering the speed limit in a neighborhood from 85 miles per hour to 75,” said John Walke, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Clean Air Program. “Sure, it’s better, but it still won’t get the job done in keeping folks safe.

Walke and other critics note that EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee recommended a stricter standard.

The committee sent a letter to Johnson last year outlining its “unanimous recommendation” that the standard be set “no greater” than 70 ppb and suggested it could be set as low as 60 ppb.

That recommendation was echoed by an EPA children’s health advisory panel, as well as more than 100 scientists and a long list of public health advocacy groups and environmental organizations.

“We wish we could be happier about this decision, but we cannot,” said Bernadette Toomey, head of the American Lung Association. “We are unable to celebrate half measures when the risks are so evident, when the science and the scientists are so united about what is needed and when the missed opportunity means that thousands will suffer more and die sooner than they should.”

The agency also refused to set a separate standard, recommended by the science advisers and the National Park Service, to protect natural ecosystems from the impacts of smog.

When pressed on what weight he gave the recommendations of EPA’s science advisers, Johnson repeatedly stated that his final decision complied with the requirements of the Clean Air Act.

Atlanta steeped in smog
(Photo by Ben Ramsay)

The law requires EPA to review air quality standards for several pollutants, including ozone, every five years. EPA is bound by the statute to determine the standards based solely on the scientific knowledge of impacts on public health – it is not permitted to consider economic impacts.

The law requires the EPA administrator “protect public health with an adequate margin of safety,” Johnson said. “I followed my obligations.”

Industry groups and governors from at least 11 states lobbied against the changes, arguing that new rules are too costly and the health impacts of the stricter standards questionable.

“EPA is promising health benefits that people may never receive, even though they’ll end up paying for them at the pump and through higher energy bills,” said John Kinsman, spokesman for the Edison Electric Group, an electric utility lobbying group.

At least 345 counties do not meet the new standard and could be forced to take measures to cut emissions of smog-forming pollutants.

Johnson acknowledged that it would take years for the rules to truly enter into effect. EPA won’t determine which areas are officially not in compliance until 2010. Counties out of attainment with the rules will then have at least three years to develop plans to cut smog and could have up to two decades to make the reductions, the EPA chief told reporters.

EPA estimates the new rules could cost some $7.6 to $8.5 billion. Health benefits could range between $2 billion and $19 billion, according to agency estimates.

Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, said the rules would require relatively few areas of the country to take additional smog cleanup steps beyond those already planned.

“Unfortunately, real science appears to have been tainted by political science,” O’Donnell said. “The Bush administration is compromising public health to save industry money.”

Johnson rejected claims that he considered economic costs when making his decision, but added that the Bush administration is keen to see the Clean Air Act changed so that future decisions can take into account the economic impacts and feasibility of more stringent air quality standards.

“It is time to modernize the Clean Air Act to improve human health,” Johnson said. “We have a responsibility to overhaul and enhance … to ensure it translates from paper promises to cleaner air.”

Democrats in Congress were quick to throw cold water on the administration’s call for an overhaul of the law.

The idea is “outrageous,” said Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat and chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

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