[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 185 (Friday, December 18, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8872-S8874]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FRANK R. LAUTENBERG CHEMICAL SAFETY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY ACT
Mr. UDALL. Mr. President, last night was a historic moment in the
Senate. After years and years of negotiations and collaboration, after
working with stakeholders across the country, we made tremendous
progress toward historic, bipartisan environmental reform. The Frank R.
Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act passed the Senate
on a unanimous voice vote, with 60 bipartisan cosponsors and with
overwhelming support. This is a great milestone.
First, I want to thank Senator Vitter. Senator Vitter and I
introduced this legislation for one basic reason: to fix our Nation's
broken chemical safety law. I remember that over 2 years ago we had a
very quiet dinner, and we walked away from that dinner saying: We are
going to form a team, and we are going to get this done. It was after
Frank Lautenberg had passed away, and Senator Vitter is a man of his
word. We stuck to it, and we are making significant historic progress.
I thank him for that.
There were times when the bill was stalled from even getting
introduced, and Senators like Tom Carper stepped in and helped us get
back on track. I thank Senator Carper for that. His early leadership as
an original cosponsor of this bill got us off on the much needed right
foot. Other moderates joined in, and we had some momentum building up.
This has been a long road to get here today. I thank Chairman Inhofe
for his calm, steady leadership, and Senator Merkley, Senator Booker,
Senator Whitehouse, Senator Markey, Senator Coons, Senator Durbin, and
many others. They all helped move this forward and all helped make this
a better bill.
I also thank Bonnie Lautenberg. Senator Lautenberg fought hard for
TSCA
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reform. I was proud to take up that fight, and I am grateful to Bonnie,
who has helped us every step of the way. She has been an incredible
advocate in terms of interacting with Senators and their staff to push
the crucial message forward on TSCA reform, and it was the message her
husband Frank Lautenberg would repeat every day when I saw him in
committee. He said: Are we doing the right thing for our children and
our grandchildren? He really believed TSCA reform would save more lives
than anything he had ever done in his life. He had a very rich life and
lived to be almost 90 years old.
I wish to also recognize the great advocates for reform. A lot of
this was grassroots people standing up and saying that we haven't done
what we need to do for the American people, for our families, and for
our children on chemical safety. There are too many to mention all of
them, but the Bipartisan Policy Center stood up and helped out; the
Environmental Defense Fund--Fred Krupp, their leader, played a crucial
role; the National Wildlife Federation; March of Dimes; North America's
Building Trades Unions; the International Association of Machinists and
Aerospace Workers; Moms Clean Air Force; the Physicians Committee for
Responsible Medicine; the Humane Society, and so many others. All of
these groups taken together represent over 30 million Americans. They
all support the Lautenberg act. They pushed Congress to act, and they
kept pushing until we did that.
Many thousands of Americans have worked for chemical safety reform
over the last four decades.
Thank you for not giving up.
They understand that we need a national solution to our broken
chemical safety law.
The Toxic Substances Control Act was enacted in 1976--nearly 40 years
ago. It was supposed to protect American families, but it doesn't. Over
four decades, the EPA has been able to restrict just five chemicals and
it has prevented only four chemicals from going to market. That is out
of tens of thousands of chemicals.
Everyday Americans go to the grocery store or the hardware store, and
they believe the chemicals in the products they buy have been tested
and are safe, but that is not true because TSCA is broken. This is
about health and safety. This is about our children and grandchildren.
This is about people like Dominique Browning, who works with Moms Clean
Air Force and worries about her kids and the toys and products they use
every day. She herself survived kidney cancer. When she asked her
doctor what caused her kidney cancer, he said: ``It's one of those
environmental ones. Who knows? We're full of chemicals.'' That was her
doctor talking to her when she got kidney cancer. This is about people
like Lisa Huguenin. Lisa is a Ph.D. scientist and has done work on
chemical exposure at Princeton and Rutgers and at the State and Federal
levels. She is a mother first. Her 13-year-old son Harrison was born
with autism and autoimmune deficiencies. Five years ago, Lisa testified
before Senator Lautenberg's subcommittee on the need for reform. She is
eager to see TSCA reform signed into law.
That is why we are here--to fix this broken system. Now we are close
to the finish line for the first time in almost 40 years.
In 2009 the Obama administration laid out six essential principles
for TSCA reform. The bill we passed last night meets all six of those
principles, and I will go through each one individually.
Principle No. 1, chemicals should be reviewed against safety
standards that are based on sound science and reflect risk-based
criteria protective of human health and the environment.
Our bill requires the EPA to assess chemicals based only on the
health and safety information, not on the cost. That was a significant
change we made, and many of the Senators I talked about earlier helped
us to get that done.
Principle No. 2, manufacturers should provide EPA with the necessary
information to conclude that new and existing chemicals are safe and do
not endanger public health or the environment.
Our bill gives EPA new authorities to develop testing data and
requires a finding of safety before new chemicals--as many as 1,500 a
year--enter the market. The finding on safety needs to be done not like
it is done today but before they enter the marketplace.
Principle No. 3, risk management decisions should take into account
sensitive subpopulations, cost, availability of substitutes, and other
relevant considerations.
Our bill specifically requires the protection of vulnerable
populations and lists examples of vulnerable populations, such as
infants, the elderly, pregnant women, workers, and others.
Principle No. 4, manufacturers and EPA should assess and act on
priority chemicals, both existing and new, in a timely manner.
Our bill requires the EPA to systematically review all the chemicals
in commerce, prioritizing the chemicals of most concern first, and it
sets aggressive, judicially enforceable deadlines for EPA decisions.
Principle No. 5, green chemistry should be encouraged and provisions
assuring transparency and public access to information should be
strengthened.
Our bill includes a section on sustainable chemistry and also makes
more information about chemicals available by limiting industry's
ability to claim information as confidential, and it gives States and
health professionals access to confidential information to protect the
public.
Principle No. 6, EPA should be given a sustained source of funding
for implementation.
Our bill gives EPA sustained sources of funding and ensures that the
EPA's priorities are not overwhelmed by private interests to ensure
that the program we implement is a risk-based system. Additionally, the
bill allows EPA to develop cost-effective final regulations but without
the high procedural hurdles in the underlying statute, strikes an
appropriate balance between Federal and State action, gives States the
right to coenforce Federal standards. This will give a State's attorney
general the ability to move when the Federal Government may not be
moving, and it leaves State civil actions alone and gives no special
advantage to either side in litigation.
We are on the verge of historic reform, decades in the making and
decades overdue. TSCA is the last of the environmental laws from the
1960s and 1970s left to be updated. Some days you might not think we
could pass a major environmental law in Congress, but we have proven
that wrong and we have a very strong bill.
Our bill finally gives the EPA the authority it needs to set clear
guidance for the EPA to evaluate new and existing chemicals and to
protect the American people. That is why support for this bill was so
strong and continued to build--from environmental, conservation, good
government, industry, and health and labor groups.
We will be working to reconcile the bill with the House legislation.
This is historic reform. The old TSCA will be obsolete. We will have a
cop on the beat and will finally be able to protect our kids from toxic
chemicals.
I wish to again thank Senator Vitter. I am proud to work with him on
this bill. We may have disagreed many times on other issues, and the
negotiations were sometimes difficult, but we stayed at the table,
listened to all sides, and looked for solutions instead of roadblocks,
and I thank Senator Vitter for that.
I also want to again thank the many colleagues who worked with us to
ensure that we have the best possible bill. At every step of the way,
we had Senators from both sides of the aisle step forward, make
suggestions, join the bill, cosponsor, and helped to move us forward.
It wouldn't be right to finish this afternoon without mentioning the
staff. The staff in the Senate do an incredible job in terms of getting
focused on the issues, learning about them in depth, working with each
other, and many times moving roadblocks out of the way.
We had a number of staff members who worked on this legislation.
Dimitri Karakitsos worked for Senator Vitter when Senator Vitter was
chairman and he now works for Chairman Inhofe. Dimitri has been amazing
in terms of his staff ability and his understanding. We really
appreciate all of his help.
I wish to also thank Chairman Inhofe's staff director, Ryan Jackson;
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Zak Baig, with Senator Vitter; Colin Peppard, with Senator Carper;
Adrian Deveny, with Senator Merkley; Emily Enderle, with Senator
Whitehouse; Adam Zipkin, with Senator Cory Booker; Michal Freedhoff,
with Senator Markey; Jasmine Hunt, with Senator Durbin; and Lisa
Hummon-Jones, with Senator Coons.
I have mentioned the great work that Jonathan Black, a member of my
staff, has done, but we have also had incredible work by my legislative
director, Andrew Wallace, and all of my staff at various points. This
legislation has been a heavy burden, and my staff worked hard to get
this legislation completed. I truly appreciate the hard work they have
done, including my chief of staff and everybody in the office.
We also had the opportunity to consult with and ask for help from the
Senate legislative counsel. They worked to turn around text quickly at
crucial points, and that makes all the difference in the world--to have
text, get it looked at, get the changes made, and get back to the
individuals who are involved.
Michelle Johnson-Weider played a key role, as did Deanna Edwards. I
am sure there were others over there who also helped us out. This is
not a definitive list. There were also many others.
I wish to conclude by thanking, again, our bipartisan partners.
Senator Vitter and I have been working on this for years. We took it up
after Senator Lautenberg passed away. Senator Vitter was on the
committee as the ranking member and the chairman--and back and forth--
and then Senator Inhofe took over.
I remember when we had a meeting with Senator Inhofe, and he took a
real interest in this legislation. He has incredible calm, steady
judgment in terms of pulling together what needs to happen to get a
bill done in this sometimes hyperpartisan atmosphere. As chairman, he
was always willing to listen to the people on the committee, off the
committee, and pull people together to help them find common ground on
this bill.
With that, we look forward to working with our House colleagues. Many
of us served in the House. We served with House Members Fred Upton,
Frank Pallone, John Shimkus, and Representative Tonko. These are some
of the key people who will be working on this in the House, and we look
forward to working with them and their staff and each other to
reconcile these bills.
The House has some very good ideas in its bill. We have been a little
more expansive and covered more areas, and I hope they will work with
us on that. We look forward to working with them and putting the two
bills together and then getting this passed early next year.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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