[corp-focus] U.S. Bullies Europeans on Chemical Testing

[Robert Weissman]

U.S. Bullies Europeans on Chemical Testing
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

Literally tens of thousands of chemicals on the market have never been
tested for their impact on human health.

The chemical industry thinks this is a good thing. Safety testing is too
expensive, the chemical companies say. Chemical manufacturers and users
handle chemicals responsibly to make sure people are not inadvertently
exposed to them. And these tens of thousands of chemicals have proven
their value and safety in real life tests -- they have been on the
market, contributing to higher standards of living, with no discernible
harmful impact on health.

Some people take a different point of view. One way or another, they
note, people are exposed to thousands of chemicals -- in the food they
eat, the water they drink, the air they breathe, through contact with
consumer products that contain chemicals, or by other means. There is
now clear evidence that people are accumulating a growing "body burden"
of industrial chemicals trapped in their tissues. According to this
view, permitting potentially dangerous chemicals on the market without
pre-screening and an assessment of the risk they pose is a kind of
societal Russian Roulette. The only sensible thing to do is test
chemicals to ensure they are safe.

This second view happens to be shared by the European Commission, the
governing body of the European Union.

In 2001, the European Commission issued a White Paper containing plans
for a new European chemicals regulation policy. The policy, known as
REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals), would
require chemical companies to test their products before putting them on
market. Substances which are carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to
reproduction and persistent organic pollutants would require affirmative
authorization before they could be placed on the market.

When the Commission announced the REACH proposal, the chemical industry
went berserk.

So did the U.S. government.

A September 2003 report from the U.S.-based Environmental Health Fund
documented a full-fledged campaign by the U.S. government to derail
REACH.

The report, based on internal government papers obtained from anonymous
sources and under the Freedom of Information Act, documents a series of
meetings between U.S. government officials and chemical industry representa=
tives.

Although industry representatives from the American Chemistry Council
and the American Plastics Council at times pushed U.S. government
officials to work more aggressively to block adoption of REACH, the
government papers show that it was Bush administration officials who
more frequently complained that industry was not opposing the plan
vigorously enough.

"The U.S. chemicals industry has been slow to respond to the White Paper
[initially proposing REACH]," asserted a briefing paper for Assistant
Secretary of Commerce Linda Conlin. But government bureaucrats didn't
have time to wait for slothful industry to take action, according to the
briefing memo. "Because of the slow pace of industry response to the
Strategy =85 Commerce, USTR and EPA drafted a preliminary set of questions
on the Strategy and provided them to the Commission in December. USTR
also met with Commission officials at that time."

Eventually, the Bush administration produced an undated "nonpaper"
criticizing REACH. Its language borrowed directly from industry attacks
on the proposed European regulations.

Top administration officials enlisted in the campaign to block adoption
of REACH. Secretary of State Colin Powell in 2002 sent an "action
request" cable to U.S. embassies in EU countries, urging them to raise
concerns with local government officials, and in 2003 sent a cable
directly to European countries, urging them to stop the European
Commission from adopting REACH. The U.S. Ambassador to the EU, Rockwell
Schnabel, repeatedly criticized REACH in public and private settings.
Commerce Secretary Donald Evans in May 2002 assured a Dupont executive
that the United States was working actively to sabotage REACH.

The U.S. State Department failed to respond to our requests for comment
on the U.S. lobbying campaign.

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) hasn't been so shy. After the
report documenting the U.S. campaign was published, Greg Lebedev, ACC
president and CEO, told Chemical Week, "We would be mad as hell if the
Bush administration didn't lobby on behalf of American manufacturing
interests."

Meanwhile, the European chemical industry was hard at work. In
September, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder and French President
Jacques Chirac sent a letter to the European Commission criticizing REACH.

Underlying the industry's rabid opposition to REACH is the precautionary
principle. The precautionary principle asserts that the entity
introducing a product into the environment or food supply must bear the
burden of showing it is safe. The REACH rules requiring authorization
for hazardous substances to be permitted on the market embody the
precautionary principle.

It is a model of effective government action that industry generally,
and the chemical industry in particular, hopes to block at any price.

Already, the campaign to pull back REACH has had a major impact.

At the end of September, the European Commission announced it was
scaling back REACH. The revisions closely track complaints from the
United States.

"REACH appears to be moving away from the White Paper and closer to the
White House," says Joseph DiGangi, who authored the Environmental Health
Fund report on U.S. efforts to undermine REACH.

Still, DiGangi says, important elements are retained -- including the
requirement that hazardous chemicals obtain authorization before being
allowed on the market.

More changes may be forthcoming. The European Commission is expected to
finalize REACH rules by the end of this month.

At stake is not only the health and well-being of the people of the
European Union, but the creation of a model and precedent for chemical
regulation and for precautionary action generally.

The choice is as simple as this: Err on the side of safety, or take your
chances and see what happens.



Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
Reporter, http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com. Robert Weissman is
editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor,
http://www.multinationalmonitor.org. They are co-authors of Corporate
Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe,
Maine: Common Courage Press; http://www.corporatepredators.org).

(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

This article is posted at: <http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus=
/2003/000164.html>.