In the case of PFOA, DuPont brazenly dumped its toxic waste into a creek that ran through a pasture where farmers grazed and watered their cows, causing grotesque malformations and deaths among the animals. Meanwhile, the company hid evidence that the chemical had contaminated the local water supply well beyond what the company’s own scientists considered safe and far beyond what independent scientists considered safe.
The Senate and the House have passed bills that would go a long way toward preventing such tragedies. What remains is for the two chambers to reconcile their versions into one bill that can be sent to the president for his signature. The Senate bill is the stronger of the two. Both would make it harder for companies to hide information from the public and from federal or state agencies by claiming it is confidential business information. Both bills would require companies to justify claims of confidentiality, but the stronger Senate bill would also require the E.P.A. to review such claims. The Senate bill would also require full public disclosure of any chemical that was found to be hazardous in testing.
The Senate bill would eliminate a “Catch-22” provision in existing law that says the E.P.A. can’t require safety testing unless it has evidence, which companies often try to hide, that a chemical may present an unreasonable risk. That is virtually impossible to demonstrate without the data that required testing would provide.
For regulatory purposes, the existing law divides chemicals into two groups — “existing chemicals,” more than 60,000, that were on the market when the first Toxic Substances Control Act was established in 1979, and “new chemicals,” more than 20,000, that entered commerce after 1979.
Although the law theoretically gave the E.P.A. authority to review “new chemicals” before they entered the market, it allowed companies to sell an untested chemical within 90 days if the overburdened agency didn’t challenge them, as was usually the case. The Senate bill, but not the House version, would mandate that the E.P.A. find the chemical safe before it can be marketed.