Not playing nice: The American Chemistry Council solidifies its claim to being the “industry of no”

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

If you had any doubt when reading my post earlier this week that the chemical industry isn’t serious about real TSCA reform, watch American Chemistry Council (ACC) President and CEO Cal Dooley’s hard-line performance at yesterday’s hearing before a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee (video link at the bottom of this page).  The legislative hearing focused on H.R. 5820, the Rush-Waxman Toxic Chemicals Safety Act of 2010 that was introduced last week.

All the themes I struck in my earlier blog post Mr. Dooley played out in spades:  more loud and long complaints aimed at every aspect of the bill; placing the worst possible interpretation on any provision subject to interpretation; playing the China and job-loss cards over and over; and last but not least, offering not a single constructive proposal of his own for reform.

A very different industry voice was also at the witness table, however – Howard Williams, V.P. & General Manager of the Pennsylvania division of Construction Specialties.  Mr. Williams deftly countered all of ACC’s theatrics, embracing all of the bill’s key provisions and making a strong business case for them. 

Mr. Williams – whose company is rooting out all of the persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) and other dangerous chemicals it can find from its building materials, slowed only by the difficulty it’s having in getting chemical identity and hazard information from some of its suppliers – pointed to the growth his company (and its greener suppliers) is enjoying and the new jobs they’ve been able to add even through the economic downturn, as direct evidence of the power of adopting stronger chemical policies in boosting rather than impeding economic growth and stability.

Meanwhile, Mr. Dooley was finding yet more aspects of the bill to object to, including ones ACC and its members have previously supported. 

Prioritization

For example, industry (like most other stakeholders, myself included) has been a huge proponent of “prioritization” by EPA – advocating that EPA identify chemicals with high hazard and exposure and focus first on them for data development and safety determinations.  Yet in his oral statement yesterday, Mr. Dooley trashed even that concept:

“Even more troubling are the provisions of the bill that would identify chemicals that would be subject to a safety determination.  The bill identifies 19 specific chemicals and requires within 12 months that the Administrator of EPA develop and maintain a list of 300 chemicals that would be subject to a safety determination