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White House Summit on Lead Pipes brings mayors, water utilities, and lead experts, including EDF's Senior Director for Safer Chemicals, Tom Neltner, to discuss accelerating replacement of lead water pipes and prioritizing those efforts for communities with the greatest health burdens.

What’s Happening? EPA’s current safety assessments of new chemicals proposed for market entry often fall short of effectively protecting all members of the public from risk because they don’t consider that we may be exposed to closely related chemicals that cause similar harms. Recent Example: EPA proposed rules requiring notification of significant new uses for …

Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals and Lindsay McCormick, Senior Manager, Safer Chemicals What’s New: After an extensive review process, EPA approved Denver Water’s request to extend the variance to allow the utility to administer their Lead Reduction Program for the full 15-year term. EPA touts Denver Water’s Lead Reduction Program as an “innovative and …

Water utilities are increasingly posting interactive maps online to help residents identify whether their homes are connected to lead service lines (LSLs). EDF's new blog series, Mapping Lead Pipes, will explore how utilities are approaching maps, evaluate which map features are most and least effective, and share best practices to help guide future efforts.

By Maria Doa, PhD, Senior Director, Chemicals Policy What’s the Issue? EPA grants exemptions from full safety reviews for approximately half the new chemicals submitted by the chemical industry. Once those exemptions are granted, EPA very rarely revises or revokes them—even in the face of new information. The Toxic Substances Control Act allows EPA to …

Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals What’s New: EPA announced it has awarded $1.16 billion to the State Revolving Fund (SRF) programs in 21 states, the District of Columbia, and three territories to support lead service line (LSL) replacement projects. In order to secure funding, these states developed and submitted Intended Use Plans (IUPs), which …

Increased funding critical for effective chemical regulation to protect public health and the environment

Toxic chemicals are used in food packaging and many are linked to health effects, like cancer or infertility. They can also pollute our soil, air and waterways, hurting more than just the person eating from the packaging.  Companies need to remove these toxic chemicals from everyday packaging to protect their business and build consumer trust. 

By Lauren Ellis, MPH, Research Analyst, Environmental Health and Samantha Liskow, Lead Counsel, Health NOTE: In a recent blog post, EDF called for EPA to revoke PFAS approved through the agency’s “low volume exemption” (an LVE is an exemption from a full safety review for new chemicals produced in quantities less than ~10 tons) and …

Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative What Happened: On November 2, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago held a meeting of more than 50 stakeholders interested in new strategies to fund and finance lead service line (LSL) replacements. I attended, representing the Lead Service Line Replacement Collaborative. Why It Matters: The meeting was an …

Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative and Roya Alkafaji, Manager, Healthy Communities Last year, the White House set a goal of eliminating lead service lines (LSLs) by 2032 and worked with Congress to enact the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA)—also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—which included critical resources to help meet this …

By Lauren Ellis, MPH, Research Analyst, Safer Chemicals What’s New: A peer-reviewed study by Danish researchers found that a male fetus who is exposed to PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances—also known as “forever chemicals”) during early pregnancy is more likely to have lower sperm quality in early adulthood. It’s the first study to explore the …

Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals This is the sixth in our Unleaded Juice blog series exploring how the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sets limits for toxic elements like lead, arsenic, and cadmium in food and the implications for the agency’s Closer To Zero program.  A core tenet of FDA’s Closer to Zero program …

FDA’s approach to setting draft action levels for lead in juice is based on ill-conceived presumptions.

Roya Alkafaji, Manager, Healthy Communities and Lindsay McCormick, Senior Manager, Safer Chemicals Denver Water has one of the most successful lead service line (LSL) replacement programs in the country. Since it began the program in 2020, the utility has replaced nearly 14,000 LSLs—prioritizing lines to buildings serving vulnerable populations, such as child-care facilities. Denver Water …

Maricel Maffini, consultant and Tom Neltner, Chemicals Policy Director In May, FDA decided to allow continued use of nine ortho-phthalates in food packaging and processing equipment but punted on deciding whether or not using those phthalates is safe. We’ve written about the petitions that resulted in the decision, along with the agency’s decision to “abandon” …

Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals For the eighth year in a row, consumers rated chemicals as their top food safety concern according to the annual industry survey of consumer perspectives on food issues. In the survey conducted in March 2022, 48% of consumers rated chemicals as their top category of food safety concern – …

Industrial processes, packaging and certain additives all contribute toxic chemicals to our foods. EDF works with regulators and companies to tackle the issue. Here’s what you can do too.

Chemicals linked to infertility and birth defects also linked to preterm birth. EDF and its allies are calling on the FDA to withdraw its approval of the phthalates it allows in food handling equipment and food packaging.

On Wednesday, September 7, 2022, Sarah Vogel, EDF’s Senior Vice President for Health, welcomed over 150 attendees to a webinar on EDF’s new Cumulative Risk Assessment Framework (CRAF). The event featured presentations by: Lariah Edwards, PhD, EDF post-doctoral fellow and Associate Research Scientist, Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University.

Maricel Maffini, EDF consultant and Tom Neltner, Chemicals Policy Director This blog is the sixth in our Broken GRAS series where we explore the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) voluntary notification system for novel chemicals added to food. In May, FDA removed its approval for all uses of 19 ortho-phthalates …

Maria Doa, PhD, Senior Director, Chemicals Policy Innovation may involve bringing a new chemical to market, but before the new chemical can be used or sold, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the nation’s primary chemical safety law, directs EPA to conduct a safety assessment. Specifically, EPA must affirmatively determine whether a new chemical may …

FDA has taken an important step by lowering the IRL for lead. It needs to use this IRL more strategically in establishing action levels for lead in juice and for other children’s foods. It should also use the 97.5th percentile of exposure in establishing IRLs for other toxic elements addressed in Closer to Zero. The post Over 7 million children exceed FDA’s new daily maximum intake level of lead first appeared on EDF Health.

Join the EDF Safer Chemicals team and our academic partners from the University of Maryland and the University of Rochester as we debut a new tool, the Cumulative Risk Assessment Framework, to support implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act.

Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals and Maricel Maffini, EDF consultant This blog is the fifth in our Broken GRAS series where we explore the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) system for novel chemicals added to food. In the spring, folks who ordered from a company that sells pre-assembled smoothies …