Pew Endorsement of the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act

Washington, DC -
The Honorable Frank Lautenberg
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable Hilda Solis
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Henry Waxman
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Re: The Kid-Safe Chemicals Act

Dear Senator Lautenberg, Representative Solis, and Chairman Waxman:

I am writing on behalf of The Pew Charitable Trusts to congratulate you on the introduction of The Kid Safe Chemicals Act.

As you know, the Toxics Substances Control Act (TSCA) is woefully outdated. The law has failed to generate fundamental health and safety information for the vast majority of chemicals nor does it provide the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the authority needed to regulate the small number of chemicals that do have data available.

The Kid-Safe Chemicals Act reforms TSCA to address these problems by requiring a minimum set of health data for all chemicals and requiring that they meet a children’s health standard or be removed from the market. We are pleased that the legislation uses the best modern science to help prioritize the chemicals for review. Specifically, the EPA will use data generated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to determine actual human exposure to chemicals by testing blood, urine, or other biological samples through bio-monitoring. This program will remove much of the guesswork that has often undermined traditional risk assessment.

We are also supportive of an important innovation in your legislation - Section 504, “Addressing Prenatal Exposures” -- that would identify the toxic chemicals that children are exposed to prenatally and fast-track them for regulation. The latest science shows that these exposures often have the most profound health effects because they occur at a critical stage of human development.

We look forward to working with you to enact the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act as soon as possible. Please don’t hesitate to contact me at (202) 778-4552 as you move forward with this important legislation.

Sincerely,

Andy Igrejas
Campaign Manager