The Environmental Protection Agency is conducting a congressionally mandated review of chemicals in products currently being manufactured and sold, the Associated Press reports.
The EPA review, however, is facing criticism from some who thought the evaluation of dangerous chemicals would be more expansive.
Former President Barack Obama signed legislation in 2016, overhauling the Toxic Substances Control Act that treated chemicals used in market product on an innocent until proven guilty basis. Environmentalists and business interests supported the legislation with both sides agreeing the original law was weak, according to Time.
In trying to enforce the law, Obama’s administration proposed reviewing all chemicals and products sold on the market or still in use though production had ceased. The scope of the proposal was criticized as unrealistic, especially since the legislation does not provide a way for the agency to fund such an extensive review.
“The compromise version looks like a house of cards,” New York University environmental health professor Leonardo Trasande told Time after the proposal was made public. “It has a very strong principles, but the implementation could leave less than the desired outcome.”
The EPA under President Donald Trump is focusing on products still being manufactured and entering the market, narrowing the scope of the proposal to make the review financially manageable, the AP reports.
“EPA is committed to protecting human health and the environment. EPA remains focused on robust chemical evaluations consistent with the law.” EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said in a statement to The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Democratic Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico, one of the laws authors, said the EPA is not acting in the spirit of the law by limiting the review.
“It doesn’t matter whether the dangerous substance is no longer being manufactured; if people are still being exposed, then there is still a risk,” Udall told the AP. “Ignoring these circumstances would openly violate the letter and the underlying purpose of the law.”
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