Time for Safer Alternatives
HOUSE LAWMAKERS PRESSURE COLLEAGUES ON 'SAFER ALTERNATIVES" BILL
A bill phasing out manufacturers' use of toxic chemicals in favor of "safer alternatives" could reach the House floor by the end of the month, a legislative leader said Thursday.
Rep. Paul Donato, chairman of the committee that schedules bills for floor consideration and a sponsor of the legislation (S 2481), said, "The environment today needs a safer alternatives bill." A Medford Democrat, Donato joined other House leaders and fellow sponsors, Reps. Frank Smizik (D-Brookline) and Jay Kaufman (D-Lexington), in putting pressure on colleagues at a press conference highlighting chemicals released from vinyl shower curtains. The Senate in January signed off on the bill, which is now in the House.
A Center for Health, Environment and Justice report released today on chemicals that make up the "new shower curtain smell" showed 108 different volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are released into the air from a curtain over a 28-day period, including types that can cause cancer, learning disabilities and asthma attacks.
A top lobbying group for manufacturers, the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, says the bill is unnecessary and burdens businesses. Manufacturers already conduct alternatives assessments as required under state law, according to Robert Rio, senior vice president of government affairs for the group. The bill would fail to prevent a product made in China, which doesn't require substitutes, from coming into Massachusetts, he added. "We'd be forcing our manufacturers and only our manufacturers to change the makeup of their products and their competitors would be unencumbered by this process," Rio said.
Smizik, chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture, said that's untrue, and distributors would be held to the same responsibility as producers. Rio sent a three-page letter in May urging lawmakers to oppose the bill. Bill supporters say the legislation allows for a slow and deliberative process, with the secretary of environmental and energy affairs working with the business community.
The bill also provides businesses with subsidies and technical assistance.
The Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow, which held the press conference, is pressing lawmakers today to pass the bill by handing out the CHEJ report and attaching a small sample of the curtains in a plastic baggie. "They'll get a sniff and a whiff but they won't be exposed like our children at home," said Lee Ketelson, New England director of Clean Water Action.
Added on June 17, 2008 by formasspta
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