Sen. Cory Booker pressed acting Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler on Wednesday to overturn a policy imposed by his predecessor that he said stopped the EPA from evaluating indirect exposure to chemicals that leak into the air, ground, or water.
The New Jersey Democrat said the move by former EPA chief Scott Pruitt contradicts a law Congress passed by bipartisan margins during the last year of the Obama administration, known as the Toxic Substances Control Act, that set rules for how the agency determines health and safety risks of chemicals. He challenged Wheeler to defend it before a family, his guests at the Senate hearing, whose child had died of cancer that Booker said was caused by chemical exposure.
“EPA is now saying it will ignore the types of exposures that these and other families have so painfully endured when deciding TCE is safe,” Booker said. “I am really hopeful you will reverse course on what I think is a bad decision.” Booker said to Wheeler as the EPA leader testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
[Also read: New EPA head Andrew Wheeler reverses Scott Pruitt’s parting gift to polluting trucks]
The TSCA law required the EPA, under new authority, to evaluate hundreds of chemicals to determine if they should face restrictions or be removed from the market.
But the EPA, in its review of the first batch of 10 chemicals, decided in most cases not to consider indirect exposure to the substances, including possible leaking into the air, ground, and water caused by improper disposing of them.
The agency, according to internal documents obtained by the New York Times, said it would evaluate only direct exposure to the chemicals in the workplace or elsewhere.
The chemical industry has lobbied for the changes, pressing for a more limited scope for risk evaluations.
Booker said the approach outlined by Pruitt’s EPA ignores Congress’s directive for a comprehensive analysis of risks.
Booker cited the dangers of one particular chemical of the first 10 that EPA is reviewing, an industrial solvent known as TCE that is used used in dry-cleaning and as a degreasing agent.
The EPA itself has found that TCE is “carcinogenic to humans by all routes of exposure.”
Last year, the EPA proposed a rule banning specific uses of the chemical. But in December, Pruitt postponed the bans on certain uses of three toxic chemicals, including TCE.
Booker said TCE is frequently found in groundwater and in air outside homes.
The senator asked Wheeler if he would commit to comprehensively reviewing the risk of chemicals such as TCE by including its release into air, water, and land.
Wheeler did not directly answer the question, although he seemed to suggest EPA is considering the full impact of TCE.
“It is my understanding we are looking at those pathways as we look at the chemicals on the list,” Wheeler said. “I need to double check with our chemicals office on that, but it is my understanding as part of the 10 chemicals we are examining the different pathways.”
He also expressed remorse for families harmed by exposure to TCE.
“It is tragic for any chemical to cause the death of a child,” Wheeler said. “My heart goes out to those families impacted by that.”
