Month: July 2015
Governor LePage to Poor Families in Rural Maine: “Let Them Drink Arsenic”
You can’t taste it, smell it or see it, but what you don’t know can hurt you. An estimated 150,000 rural Mainers are slowly being poisoned by arsenic in their drinking water drawn from private wells. This silent public health crisis robs our youth of intelligence and causes skin, bladder and lung cancer. Yet only… Read more »
Green Chemistry Awards Dominated by Biobased
Earlier this week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognized this year’s winners of the Presidential Green Chemistry Award. Green chemistry (also known as sustainable chemistry) means designing processes and research in a way that minimizes the use and generation of hazardous substances. In other words, is there a way to make this without using hazardous chemicals and… Read more »
U.S. Senate: Follow the House Path to Chemical Reform, Healthy Homes
Guess who approved the safety of all those chemicals that make up the latest stuff you just brought home from that big box retailer? Nobody. That’s right! Nearly 40 years ago, Congress first passed the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). But the law proved toothless. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) couldn’t even ban asbestos,… Read more »
Independence Day for Toxic Chemicals?
As we celebrate the 4th of July, I don’t have to reach very far to connect today’s debate on chemical safety reform with the themes of freedom and independence. That’s because right now, a bill before the US Senate would strip away an important right from state governments: the right to protect their own citizens… Read more »