Read the full story at Environmental Leader.
Connecticut has passed the nation’s first-ever extended producer responsibility (EPR) bill for mattresses that supporters say will save local governments about $1.3 million and increase recycling opportunities for businesses. The law will require mattress manufacturers to finance and manage a mattress collection and recycling program.
The bill will now go to Gov. Dannel Malloy to sign into law.
Read the full story from the Investigative Fund and the Washington Monthly.
The European Union bans nearly 1,400 chemicals from personal care products because they are carcinogenic, mutagenic, or toxic to reproduction. But in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration entrusts safety regulation of cosmetics to a private entity that is housed and funded by the industry’s trade association. To date, this entity has found only eleven chemicals to be “unsafe for use in cosmetics.”
In a recent Harvard Business School Working Paper entitled “Public Procurement and the Private Supply of Green Buildings”, researchers Timothy Simcoe and Michael W. Toffel examined the impact of environmentally friendly government procurement policies on private-sector adoption of the targeted products.
The authors found that municipal government green building procurement policies that apply only to municipal buildings also accelerate the use of green building practices in the private sector, both in the cities with these policies as well as in neighboring cities. They also found that such government policies encourage private-sector investment in complementary services, which likely reduces green building costs to private developers.
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-249
Highlights – http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/653277.pdf
Since 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has made progress implementing its new approach to managing toxic chemicals under its existing Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) authority; particularly by increasing efforts to obtain chemical toxicity and exposure data and initiating chemical risk assessments–which EPA uses, along with other information, to decide what regulatory or other actions, if any, are warranted. The results of EPA’s data collection activities, in most cases, have yet to be realized, and it may take several years before EPA obtains much of the data it is seeking. Also, EPA has not pursued some opportunities to obtain chemical data that companies submit to foreign governments or to obtain data from chemical processors that prepare chemical substances after their manufacture for distribution in commerce–some of which could help support the agency’s risk assessment activities. Of the 83 chemicals EPA has prioritized for risk assessment, it initiated 7 assessments in 2012 and plans to start 18 additional assessments in 2013 and 2014. However, it may take several years to complete these initial risk assessments and, at the agency’s current pace, over a decade to complete all 83, especially as EPA does not have the toxicity and exposure data needed for 58 of the 83 chemicals prioritized for risk assessment. In addition to its risk assessment activity, EPA has initiated other actions–such as increasing review of certain new uses of chemicals–that may discourage the use of these chemicals, but it is too early to tell whether these actions will reduce chemical risks.
It is unclear whether EPA’s new approach to managing chemicals within its existing TSCA authorities will position the agency to achieve its goal of ensuring the safety of chemicals. EPA officials said that the agency’s new approach, summarized in its 2012 Existing Chemicals Program Strategy, is intended to guide EPA’s efforts to assess and control chemicals in the coming years. However, EPA’s strategy, which largely focuses on describing activities EPA has already begun, does not include leading federal strategic planning practices that could help guide its effort. Specifically, EPA has not defined strategies that address challenges–many of which are rooted in TSCA’s regulatory framework–that may impede EPA’s ability to meet its long-term goal of ensuring chemical safety. Specifically, EPA has not clearly articulated how it will address challenges associated with obtaining toxicity and exposure data needed for risk assessments and placing limits on or banning chemicals under existing TSCA authorities. In addition, EPA’s strategy does not describe the resources needed to execute its new approach. For example, EPA’s strategy does not identify roles and responsibilities of key staff or offices or identify staffing levels or costs associated with conducting the activities under its new approach. Without a plan that incorporates leading strategic planning practices, EPA cannot be assured that its new approach to managing chemicals, as described in its Existing Chemicals Program Strategy, will provide a framework to effectively guide its effort. Consequently, EPA could be investing valuable resources, time, and effort without being certain that its efforts will bring the agency closer to achieving its goal of ensuring the safety of chemicals.
In 1976, Congress passed TSCA to provide EPA with the authority to obtain more information on chemicals and to regulate those chemicals that EPA determines pose unreasonable risks of injury to human health or the environment. GAO has reported that EPA has found much of TSCA difficult to implement–hampering the agency’s ability to obtain certain chemical data or place limits on chemicals. Of the thousands of chemicals listed for commercial use in the United States, EPA has used its authority to limit or ban five chemicals since TSCA was enacted. In 2009, EPA announced TSCA reform principles to inform ongoing efforts in Congress to strengthen the act. At that time, EPA also initiated a new approach for managing toxic chemicals with the goal of ensuring the safety of chemicals using its existing authorities.
GAO was asked to evaluate EPA’s efforts to strengthen its management of chemicals. This report determines the extent to which (1) EPA has made progress implementing its new approach and (2) EPA’s new approach positions it to achieve its goal of ensuring the safety of chemicals. GAO examined agency documents and TSCA rulemaking and interviewed agency officials and stakeholders from industry and environmental organizations.
GAO recommends, among other things, that EPA develop strategies that address challenges impeding its ability to ensure chemical safety and identify the resources needed to so. EPA neither agreed nor disagreed with GAO’s recommendations.
Read the full story in Great Lakes Echo.
Wisconsin has not systematically looked for endocrine disruptors statewide. Research and regulation of them is poorly funded and loosely coordinated, according to a Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism review of records and interviews with government officials and environmental experts.
Read the full story in R&D Magazine.
At the start of a major conference to regulate chemical and hazardous waste safety, top officials voiced optimism Saturday that delegates will approve new international controls on several industrial compounds and agree to clamp down on some cross-border pollution.
The three key international treaties that govern chemicals and hazardous waste, each headquartered in Geneva, are holding an unprecedented joint two-week convention of more than 1,500 delegates from 170 nations that is meant to consider new limits on some substances and look at ways the treaties can be better put to use together.
The conference will culminate in a high-level meeting among about 80 ministers on May 9-10.
This report describes recent state legislative and policy efforts to prevent the hazards and risks associated with toxic chemicals, which are often known as “chemicals of concern.” It also highlights state actions and experiences to advance needed reforms of federal chemicals policy.
Read the full story in Time.
America may be a bit of a mess when it comes to climate policy—though that mess has been surprisingly effective in reducing carbon emissions in recent years—but environmentalists could always look across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, where greens are green, cars are small and global warming actually matters. Countries like Germany and Spain have led the way in supporting renewable energy, and cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen put America to shame when it comes to encouraging dense development and carbon-free cycling.
But the green jewel was the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)—the European-wide carbon market, by far the largest such system in the world. The ETS, launched in 2005, allowed Europe to put a common price on a ton of carbon, which was meant to encourage utilities and factories to reduce carbon emissions in the most efficient way popular. A similar system carbon cap-and-trade system for the U.S. died in the Senate in 2010, and there’s little chance it will be revived any time soon.
Read the full story in Environmental Leader.
Facilities are now allowed to recycle plastics separated from automobile shredder residue, according to the EPA’s new interpretation of existing regulations.
The interpretation permits recycling plastic scrap containing levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) less than 50 parts per million. The EPA banned the manufacturing, sale and distribution of PCB products in US in 1979 because of the health and environmental hazards that these chemicals can cause. The EPA still permits PCBs in what it calls “totally enclosed” uses, such as transformers and capacitors.
Read the full story in Governing.
The Environmental Protection Agency has delayed indefinitely a much-anticipated final rule limiting greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants.
Proposed a year ago, the rule was the first to set limits on carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants. Once a limit is set for new plants, the EPA is legally obligated to address existing facilities, which pose the true climate threat for now. The United States’ power plant fleet is the single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world.
