Drywall News Roundup
A string of recent developments have brought the issue of contaminated drywall back into the headlines (we last wrote about the issue here).
Last week EPA released the results of tests it did on two Chinese drywall samples taken from a Florida home. They found sulfur, as well as two organic compounds associated with acrylic paints (all not usually in drywall). They also found strontium at much higher levels than usual for drywall.
On Thursday, the Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee (got that?) held a hearing on drywall. The CPSC's Lori Saltzman tried to assure the Senators that the agency was addressing the problem, and referred the committee to www.cpsc.gov/drywall, but as of Wednesday morning it's a dead URL. The agency does have information for the public here.
Dr. David Krause, of the Florida Department of Health, testified that Florida health officials first received reports of sulfur-like odors in homes in August 2008. He tweaked federal agencies: "Initial hesitation by Federal agencies to fully engage the necessary resources is transforming into a more active partnership."
Krause also gave some information for the public: "The great …
The drywall debacle continues.
Inez Tenenbaum, President Obama's nominee for head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, got a number of drywall questions from senators at her nomination hearing earlier this month. They said the government response seemed too slow. Tenenbaum pledged she'd work on the problem, and was subsequently confirmed by a voice vote by the full chamber.
The CPSC has posted somewhat more extensive information on its website about identifying possibly contaminated drywall. Florida's Department of Health had previously posted their own guide, and the two document give somewhat conflicting information. Hmm.
In Louisiana, a state senator, Julie Quinn, tried to move a bill that sought to place clear liability on the "manufacturer, seller and distributor" of tainted drywall. The effort floundered earlier this month.
Also on the legal front, a number of drywall-related lawsuits from around the country will be consolidated …
Waxman-Markey passed the House. Was it the right thing to do? What's the outlook from here? Here are a few views from around the web.
The concerns about measuring and enforcing offsets are genuine (and increased because of Waxman-Markey’s reliance on USDA to do the job.) But those problems aren’t insurmountable either. Instead of complaining about reliance on offsets or the inclusion of USDA, we need to think about how to improve the offset program.
When you draw intersecting curves of “what needs to be done” and “what can realistically be done,” Waxman has time and again put himself at the intersection, and I think it involves a fair amount of hubris to think that you know better than him what the best feasible legislative outcome is.
That said, there’s really no getting around the fact that the best …
What was the cost, in dollar terms, of the nine lives lost in the DC Metro crash on Monday? And how does that compare to what the cost would have been to prevent the accident, or lessen the severity of it? Should we do a cost-benefit analysis to determine the best policy?
Edward Tenner's post at the Atlantic looks at the absurdity of the proposition:
The disturbing truth is that even at the old, higher number, the loss of 9 human lives would not be grounds for replacement of the older model cars offering less survivability. Even if all nine casualties could have been spared, the $888 million estimate cost of replacing 1970s cars newer, safer models would have been almost $100 million per life, more than twelve times the pre-2008 $8.04 million statistical value of life used by the EPA.
This makes me think. In …
Andrew Freedman of washingtonpost.com's Capital Weather Gang has a nifty catch: the Heartland Institute, the people cluttering up my newspaper this week with climate-change-denying ads, have officially changed tack on their lobbying policy. Back in March, the group told Freedman:
"Our purpose is to bring scientists, economists, and policy experts together to address issues overlooked or ignored by the IPCC the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change .... If we really wanted to influence policy we would have held the event in Washington, not New York - as many of the policy wonks at the conference have urged us to do, but we resist."
But the group ended up holding its conference in Washington this month. Now they tell Freedman:
"The reason we moved up the date, changed the location, and presented a shorter schedule ... was to bring our message to elected officials in Washington D …
Today CPR releases Reauthorizing the Chesapeake Bay Program: Exchanging Promises for Results (press release, full report).
For years, the jurisdictions within the Chesapeake Bay watershed (the states and Washington D.C.) have essentially not faced consequences for failing to meet pollution-reduction targets. It's not surprising that the Chesapeake Bay has languished.
What the new CPR report recommends is almost an obvious next step: the states should face consequences for not meeting goals. The report calls on Congress to empower the EPA to impose penalties on jurisdictions that flunk.
The report says that Congress should reauthorize the Chesapeake Bay Program with changes to require Bay jurisdictions to set a statutory deadline of 2020 for Bay restoration, and require Bay jurisdictions to establish five sets of two-year milestones outlining the interim reduction requirements necessary to achieve that deadline. When jurisdictions fail to meet the milestones, the CPR report …
On Tuesday, Representatives Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak sent a letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg asking the agency to re-examine its assessment that bisphenol A (BPA) does not pose health risks to consumers. The FDA responded that it was already planning on doing so, and that a new decision would be released within "weeks, not months" (AP, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported on Saturday, and the Washington Post on Sunday, about a meeting of industry groups in Washington last week to devise a plan to respond to criticisms of Bisphenol A (BPA).
From the Post:
Manufacturers of cans for beverages and foods and some of their biggest customers, including Coca-Cola, are trying to devise a public relations and lobbying strategy to block government bans of a controversial chemical used in the linings of metal cans and lids.
The Environmental Working Group has posted the full memo summarizing the meeting. The memo says that the commitee is focusing lobbying efforts on Connecticut and California, given pending legislation. And: "Their 'holy grail' spokesperson would be a 'pregnant young mother who would be willing to speak around the country about the benefits of BPA.' "
Serious health concerns ought to be treated as serious health concerns, not just a …
On Tuesday, CPR Member Scholar Catherine O'Neill testified about mercury pollution from chlor-alkali plants at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection.
At least one in ten women of childbearing age in the United States has blood levels of mercury that threaten the neurological health of her newborn babies. Chlor-alkali plants are a major source of mercury pollution (which we are exposed to primarily through eating fish), even though only four of the plants in the United States still use a mercury-emitting technology. It's completely unnecessary, O'Neill argued, because the industry developed an alternative technology decades ago that does not use any mercury. Approximately 95 percent of chlor-alkali is produced using those newer processes, "diaphragm cell" and "membrane cell."
Said O'Neill: "For years now, we’ve tried waiting this problem out, allowing the …
CPR President Rena Steinzor and Policy Analyst Matt Shudtz submitted formal comments this week to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) with policy recommendations for separating science from politics.
Back on March 9, President Obama issued a memorandum on scientific integrity, which outlined broad principles on the subject and requested that John Holdren, the director of OSTP, draw up a series of specific policy recommendations. CPR Member Scholars wrote a letter to Holdren with initial recommendations, and suggested opening the process to formal public comment. On April 27, the White House announced that they were doing just that.
The comments submitted by Steinzor and Shudtz on Wednesday give recommendations in response to each of the six broad principles that President Obama set out. Below is a summary of their recommendations.
Ensuring Selection and Retention of the Best-Qualified Candidates for Science & Technology Positions …
