This is a fascinating
paradigm shift, although I would be genuinely surprised if such
legislation could make it out of committee, let alone through the
House. Does the ACS have a position on this or is it too hot an
issue for them to touch given the ACC's strong
opposition?
(CNN) -- A new bill could
alter the landscape of chemical regulation in the United States by
empowering researchers to take swift action against the most potentially
harmful chemicals in use today.
The bill, to be
introduced later this month, would give the director of the National
Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and a panel of experts
selected by the director, the power to ban up to 10 chemicals from
commerce each year by categorizing them as being of high
concern.
Those chemicals would become unlawful
to use 24 months after receiving that
designation.
Among the chemicals that could be
subject to a ban is bisphenol A, or BPA, a hormone-disrupting substance
widely used in plastics that has been the target of controversy in
recent months.
The bill is to be introduced by
Rep. Jim Moran, D-Virginia, and Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, later
this month.
The fate of the legislation,
though, is far from certain. It will have to make its way through
committee in both the Republican-controlled House and the Senate, where
Democrats have a small majority.
CNN received
an advance copy of the bill*, called the Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals
Exposure Elimination Act of 2011, which has a self-executing statute
under which the listing of high concern by the NIEHS automatically would
outlaw the chemical or class of chemicals, and would require each
regulatory agency to take action to prohibit the
chemical.
*Editor's note: This is an advanced
draft of the bill. It could change before being
introduced.
If the bill were to become law, the
NIEHS, a part of the National Institutes of Health, could have chemicals
outlawed much sooner than otherwise
possible...
(much more in the rest of the
article; see link above).