I’ve had the privilege to work at EHSC for eight of our ten years of existence, and was connected to some of the organization’s campaigns even during its first two years. I can’t think of anything better that I could do for my family, my friends, and my community than fight for safe homes and schools free of toxic chemicals, for clean air and water that can sustain life, and for a strong and just economy that makes healthy products and shares benefits fairly with everyone.

Ten years ago, Maine had barely begun to tackle keeping just a handful of dangerous substance like lead and mercury out of our air, water and soil. Hardly any legislators, opinion leaders, or advocates had thought about the thousands of chemicals that are used in couches, car seats, shampoos, and the other everyday products that fill our homes and lives, about how little we know about their safety, or about what one state could do to protect health and promote safer chemicals. Early in the Center’s history a lot of people said “you can’t,” as in: “You can’t beat the chemical industry” or “You can’t ban chemicals.” But we have, through a mix of strong science, smart advocacy, compelling voices, and lots and lots of grassroots support.

Ten years later, thanks to leadership by EHSC and many partners, and action by thousands of supporters, Maine has adopted a slate of first-in-the-nation policies to get arsenic, mercury, and toxic flame retardants out of consumer products, and even passed a completely new system to identify the worst chemicals, find safer alternatives, and drive transitions. We’ve modeled how one state can act on its responsibility to protect its residents and use its authority to force national and international companies to put children’s health first. In the past ten years, we’ve beaten the chemical industry and their dirty tricks and hired “experts” again and again.

We all have losses in our lives, and we all have hopes. Our memories and our dreams can both motivate us to help fight injustice and build a better world. When my son wakes up happy every morning, or runs to give me a hug when I get home, I know that I would do anything to make sure he, and the children he may have one day, grow up healthy and safe. We work hard to teach him to tell the truth, be nice to others and clean up any messes he makes. That would be a great set of principles for the chemical industry to adopt.

Early in this Legislative Session, the LePage administration publicly targeted the BPA phase out and the Kid-Safe Products Act as part of its rollback agenda. EHSC and our supporters and allies rose to the challenge, demonstrating the depth and intensity of public support for safer chemicals and children’s health to Legislators, the media, and the Governor. We also worked with many partners to marshal scientific evidence, expert testimony, and medical and business support. We harnessed the outrage of parents, grandparents, children, and families to send a loud and clear message: Maine supports safer chemicals!

Public support for safer products has continued to increase since the 2008 passage of the Kid-Safe Products Act. A February poll commissioned by the Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine found that 91% of Mainers surveyed believe it is important for Maine to identify the most dangerous chemicals currently used in making consumer products, and require manufacturers to replace them with safer ones as long as they are effective and affordable.

The Maine Legislature got the message. In the end, we won unanimous passage of a set of improvements and clarifications to the Kid-Safe Products Act that rejected a broad set of chemical industry-drafted proposals that would have gutted the law. We also won nearly unanimous approval of the phase out of BPA from baby bottles, sippy cups, and all reusable food and beverage containers, and overcame the Governor’s repeated threats to block it when he allowed the phase out to go into effect without his signature.

The Maine Legislature clearly understands that the public and the business community value common sense regulation of dangerous chemicals in everyday products. Unfortunately, the LePage administration and its corporate lobbyist advisors (many of whom have been hired into positions of authority in state government) still don’t get it. Earlier this month, we learned about new administration actions that threaten to dismantle the safer chemicals program in the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). The administration has eliminated a half-time staff position to collect, manage, and analyze manufacturer reports on the use of BPA and other priority chemicals in children’s products. Now we don’t know if parents and retail businesses will get access to information about these chemicals they were promised under the law. The administration also just reassigned the only safer chemicals program staff person to completely different work.

So what is the LePage administration really up to? They aren’t saying. No program stakeholders were consulted about, or even informed of, these actions, and they have not been publicly announced. That’s why last week, EHSC wrote to the DEP seeking an explanation of these changes and how the Department plans to meet its responsibilities under the Law to protect Maine’s children. We also asked for an in-person meeting with key stakeholders to discuss the issues. You can read our statement and the letter here.

It’s no surprise that the chemical industry opposes policies that require disclosure of ingredients, health and safety testing, and replacement of dangerous chemicals with safer ones. Nor is it a surprise that they will use many tactics to stall reform. We had hoped for better from the LePage administration. But the Governor’s rollback agenda, his comments dismissing the overwhelming science of BPA’s toxicity, his insulting comment about women only growing “little beards” if they are exposed to BPA, and the recent DEP actions make it clear where the LePage administration stands (at least for the moment) – and it’s not with Maine children, parents, doctors, scientists, and small businesses.

So what’s next? We’re not going to let the administration dismantle the safer chemicals program behind closed doors and ignore the will of the public and the Legislature. We will demand access to public information, enforcement of the law and rules, and continued action to protect our children. We will engage our supporters and allies to hold the DEP and the LePage administration accountable. It’s going to take all of us, but if the first Legislative Session under the LePage administration proved anything, it demonstrated that Maine people, businesses and legislators are unwilling to compromise our health, even at the request of the Governor.  Round 1 is over, and Round 2 is starting. Ding, ding.

Jasiah loves hoses of all kinds more than anything else in the world. Garden hoses, aquarium hoses, vacuum cleaner hoses, you name it – he loves it. He especially loves our little shop vac, which is the first thing he gets out to play with in the morning and that last thing he plays with at night before he goes to bed.

So his big birthday present today was his very own Mini Shop Vac. As you can see – he loves it.

Unfortunately, a bill just introduced in the Maine Legislature (LD 1129) would exempt products like this shop vac and the carpet he is sitting on (which he plays with or on for several hours EVERY DAY) from Maine’s Kid-Safe Products law, which lets Maine remove the most dangerous chemicals that harm our children from everyday products.

If you live in Maine, you can celebrate Jasiah’s birthday by taking a moment to help stop this attack on our children’s health: http://ehsc.e-actionmax.com/takeaction.asp?aaid=810

But today I am not feeling so laid back about it. In fact, I’m pretty [expletive deleted] angry at the moment.

It’s apparently not enough that the chemical industry doesn’t test most of its products for health and safety, usually refuses to share information they do have with the public, and opposes any requirements that chemicals meet basic safety standards.

Now some of the chemical industry’s toxic products may be messing with childhood itself.

A brand new study – just published August 9 on the web site of the medical journal “Pediatrics” – documents a dramatic increase of early puberty in girls. Scientists don’t yet know exactly how the different contributing factors (such as genetics and environmental exposures) are contributing to this rise, but we do know that our homes, schools, and workplaces are awash in unrestricted chemicals that disrupt human hormones and affect development. Because of widespread biomonitoring, we also know that we and our children (including many fetuses and just-born infants) carry these chemicals in our bodies at levels known to cause harm.

The best recent science has shown us that certain synthetic chemicals (such as bisphenol A or BPA, currently proposed for action by the state of Maine) disrupt our hormone systems, which help regulate growth, development, and bodily functions. Because these endocrine disrupting chemicals act like hormones in our bodies, tiny exposures can cause major health changes.

We may have just received a wake up call about just how urgently aggressive action on BPA and other hormone disrupting chemicals is needed.

The results of the new study are truly shocking. Early puberty in girls is important in part because it’s linked to an increased risk of breast cancer later in life, and also with lower self-esteem, greater rates of depression, eating problems and suicide attempts.

The study of more than 1,000 girls, conducted at three sites around the country, found that:

• The rate of early puberty in girls has more than doubled in just over a decade.
• At least 1 in 10, and as many as 4 in 10, girls in the study had begun developing breasts (the first indication of puberty in many girls) by age 8.
• 23% (almost 1 in 4) seven year old black girls experiences early maturation, along with 15% of Hispanic girls and 10% of white girls.
• Among eight year olds, 18% of white girls, almost a third of Hispanic girls, and 43% of black girls had some breast tissue.

So here’s the big question. With early puberty in girls increasing so dramatically, and so much at stake, why, in the name of whatever higher power or universal life force you believe in, would we continue to allow proven hormone disrupting chemicals to be used in everyday consumer products that expose young girls to these dangerous substances when safer alternatives are available?

Many of you already know the answer. Our national chemical safety system is broken, and while many states like Maine are acting, the chemical industry and many manufacturing companies and trade associations continue to oppose any actions to protect our children from dangerous chemicals.

But really what I’d like to know is this: What are you going to do about it?

Right now, Maine has the opportunity to join several other states in banning BPA in all reusable food and beverage containers (including baby bottles and sippy cups). The proposed action on BPA under our Kid-Safe Products Act would also require manufacturers of other products (such as infant formula packaging, toys, child care articles and tableware) to report whether they use BPA in their products and, in the case of infant formula packaging, research whether safer alternatives are available.

This month, the Board of Environmental Protection is accepting public comments on the proposal to start getting BPA out of the products that expose our children.

But this isn’t going to be easy. The companies that make and use BPA have shown up in force everywhere else BPA restrictions have been proposed to defend their profits, and we expect them here in Maine as well.

YOU can make the difference.

Sign up here to attend the public hearing in Augusta on Thursday, August 19 at 1:00 PM. (We’ll send you directions, materials, and a reminder.)

If you can’t attend the public hearing, you can still submit a formal written comment by August 30. All the comments will be copied and summarized for every Board member.

Submit a comment online.

For several years, Maine and other states have led the way toward policies that protect human health, support safer chemicals, and advance economic development based on green chemistry and safe products. These bottom-up public campaigns and aggressive action by state governments have improved health, saved money, and – more recently – driven Congress and the federal government to take up the issue.

Let’s be clear. In the United States, change has always moved upward, rising from public demands to action by states to – eventually – national action. Similarly, the real on-the-ground success of federal laws and policies depends on oversight and implementation by states, tribes, and the public.

We’re now about a decade into the current wave of environmental health movement. These campaigns have led to phase outs of some of the most dangerous and widely used chemicals and new investment in safer chemicals research and safer products economic development.

State action, public outrage, and media interest have finally driven the federal government and Congress to take up the issue. But our federal government moves slowly, and the money and political power available to the chemical industry is magnified at the national level, where policy makers are less connected to the public than state officials.

So what will it take to keep up the grassroots campaigns around the country that have led to change, continue state actions to protect public health, and increase the pressure on Congress to stand up to the chemical industry and pass real change?

That’s what representatives of several states discussed this week in DC. In between meeting with members of Congress and talking about the just-introduced House safer chemicals bill, we strategized about how to continue progress at the state level and maximize state and grassroots pressure for national reform. (Learn more about the new House bill here.)

Grassroots and state voices – like moms, dads, doctors, nurses, public health advocates, state legislators, and business leaders – will be even more important going forward. We know that the chemical industry wants to use their money and clout in Congress to block real reform, and use weak national reform to overturn strong state laws.

Reform of our broken national chemical safety system that builds on existing state actions, truly protects public health, and provides full health and safety information to consumers and businesses depends on all of us. It’s an old story, but still true even in the age of Facebook, Twitter, and Chatroulette: real change only comes from the bottom up.

This morning, I listened to Maine’s Board of Environmental Protection discuss a proposal to ban the toxic, hormone-disrupting chemical bisphenol A (BPA) from all reusable food and beverage containers (including baby bottle, sipply cups, etc.) and require companies that make a variety of other products with BPA to disclose which products contain BPA and why.

This is a HUGE step for Maine and the U.S.. BPA is proposed to be the very first Priority Chemical targeted for immediate action under our Kid-Safe Products Law (that many of you reading this post helped to pass).

On August 19, in Augusta, there will be a public hearing on this proposal. If you think BPA doesn’t belong in products that expose our kids, then YOU need to be there. We’ll be sending out more details shortly. (If you’re not already signed up to get action alerts from EHSC, please do that now at https://www.thedatabank.com/dpg/338/personal2.asp?formid=signup)

The short answer is that yes, fires at businesses and homes can and do release dangerous toxic emissions. For example, vinyl products (like siding or flooring) and products treated with brominated flame retardants can release dangerous emissions when burned. EHSC has worked closely with the Professional Firefighters of Maine to support policy changes that protect both consumers and firefighters, including Maine’s bans on brominated flame retardants and an important recent law that makes it easier for firefighters to be compensated when they contract cancers caused by exposure to chemicals on the job.

Other important work to reduce the dangers posed by toxic chemicals in building materials is being done by our national allies, the Healthy Building Network. (http://www.healthybuilding.net/)

Public disclosure of chemical use, storage, and transport is also critical, which is why EHSC has supported the federal Toxics Release Inventory, Maine’s Toxics Use Reduction law, and other public information policies. If cities, towns, and fire departments or other emergency responders don’t know dangers present at a fire or accident, they can’t protect themselves and residents.

There is some reporting required by certain facilities about their use or storage of some hazardous substances, but the chemicals covered and the reporting required is fairly limited, and is not likely to include chemicals used in building materials. There is also some emergency planning required for some facilities. But whether the limited reporting and planning required is fully integrated into city and firefighter operations and responses is a very different question, especially in these days of budget cutbacks.

We’ve invited both Portland firefighters and city officials to respond to this post with more information or their reactions, and – as always – we encourage discussion and comments from EHSC supporters here too!

Maine Emergency Management Agency on hazardous materials at fixed facilities: http://www.maine.gov/mema/prepare/prep_hazard_display.shtml?id=14910

Steve Taylor
Program Director

You can read a summary of the new report here – http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/opinion/06kristof.html – and find the full report here (as soon as it’s posted): http://deainfo.nci.nih.gov/advisory/pcp/pcp.htm

EHSC’s Sustainable Economy program, and in particular our sustainable bioplastics project working to create a nontoxic bio-based plastic from Maine potatoes, is all about innovation. Our state’s and our nation’s economy are changing, moving toward a more sustainable, safer, healthier economy. Will Maine be at the front of that next economic wave, or behind it? EHSC and our partners are working to place Maine at the center of the new nontoxic economy.

This evening, the event will include a Gubernatorial Candidates forum – we’ll find out something about where 7 candidates for Governor stand on innovation as a core economic development strategy.

Steve Taylor
Program Director