Sierra Club California Hails New Toxics-Fighting Law

It’s long been one of our state’s saddest absurdities: Toxic regulators have the authority to classify a child’s lead-tainted lunch box as hazardous waste – but can’t do anything to stop the child from eating lunch out of it.

That’s about to change. Today, I was honored to join Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in Los Angeles as he signed two landmark chemical policy reform bills, AB 1879 by Assemblymember Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) and SB 509 by Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto). These two bills give California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control new authority to promote "green chemistry" practices aimed at lowering the toxic burden of products California families buy and use every day.

In my remarks at the signing ceremony, I hailed the most successful environmental legislation of 2008 in our state and asserted Sierra Club's position that Californians should be able to buy products for our households without having to worry that we're bringing home hazardous substances that could harm our families.

As Assemblymember Feuer put it, "Instead of putting partisan politics first, we’re putting peoples’ health first." We worked hard all year long with Mr. Feuer and our allies at Breast Cancer Fund, CA League of Conservation Voters and Environment California to craft this landmark legislation.

For environmental health advocates like us, the hard work has just begun. I will continue to participate in the implementation of this law, standing up for a healthy future for all Californians.
- Bill Magavern


Click here to watch the governor sign AB 1879 (opens as Windows Media Player file)

Banding Together To Protect The Budget

Remember last year’s budget debacle?

California’s legislative Republicans held up the budget for more than a month as they tried to roll back environmental protections – and as everyday Californians rolled their eyes at the lack of leadership they exhibited.

Now, they’re at it again. They’ve already said they plan to postpone implementation of California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, roll back diesel pollution reductions and undermine the 8-hour work day. These proposals probably will become a big part of the negotiations surrounding California’s 2008-2009 budget.

So this year, Sierra Club California and its environmental, health and labor allies have taken an early, unified stand against the efforts to undermine our environmental and worker protections.
California needs solid proposals to close a budgetary gap that’s yawned to more than $15 billion.

That’s why the Republican proposals are so shaky: they actually pile on more potential costs. For example, the Republicans want the Legislature to extend deadlines for cleaning up dangerous emissions from the diesel trucks responsible for nearly 40 percent of California’s most toxic diesel pollution.

At what cost? Diesel pollution annually leads to 1,500 early deaths annually, and causes about $12 billion in costs associated with premature death, health care, lost productivity and lost school attendance each year.

There’s even more potential expense associated with a delay in the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act. If we don’t immediately address the pollution that causes global warming, we won’t benefit from the measures taken to reduce that pollution: cleaner air and energy, more efficient cars and appliances and protected coastal areas.

And we might not take in as big a share of the $1.79 billion that venture capitalists poured into California’s green economy last year.

Despite the clear benefits provided by the environmental rules, Sierra Club California advocates fully expect this year’s budget negotiations to once again include a battle to protect our air and atmosphere.

As the minority party, Republicans have the most power during the budget process, since they can withhold the few Republican votes needed to reach the 2/3 super-majority required to adopt the budget. Last year, they tried (and mostly failed) to block the use of the California Environmental Quality Act to address global warming.

Even as the Republicans gear up to attack these critical protections, the state’s most important Republican, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger indicated this month that he wants to keep the Global Warming Solutions Act safe from attack. He’s also made it easier to implement the diesel truck rule, by providing nearly $50 million to assist low-income truckers in complying with the new rules. Legislative Democrats, most notably Senator Alan Lowenthal and Assemblymember Mark DeSaulnier also stand with us. Like us, they’re taking a stand against the potential hijacking of the state’s budget.

Hopefully, when the budget negotiations begin in earnest, California’s working families won’t be rolling their eyes at another Republican tantrum. They’ll be looking forward to cleaner air, cleaner energy and a new, greener future.

See What Sierra Club California Advocates Have To Say About The Budget

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Bills Would Protect Consumers from Dangerous Chemicals

This morning, Sierra Club California Director Bill Magavern joined Assemblymembers Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles), Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), and Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco), to speak in support of three important pieces of legislation in the fight to protect consumers from dangerous chemicals.

AB 1860 (Huffman) would require immediate removal of recalled toys and other products from the market; prohibits the sale of recalled toys and other recalled consumer products, and imposes stiff fines against those who sell recalled products to prevent the items from surfacing on the Internet or at second-hand stores; requires recalled products to be properly disposed of and for manufacturers to certify their disposal; requires manufacturers to establish a notification system when recalling products; mandates that retailers post recall notices in a conspicuous fashion.

AB 1879 (Feuer) would authorize the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) to regulate all consumer products that contain the following chemicals: lead, mercury, cadium, arsenic, polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs), phthalates, and hexavalent chromium. DTSC currently has limited authority to regulate these chemicals in certain products.

AB 2694 (Ma) would ban lead above trace levels of in children’s toys and products, using the 40 parts per million (ppm) standard endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Sierra Club California 2008 Priority Bills

Smart Growth/Global Warming. SB 375 (Steinberg) would require certain regional transportation plans to include a sustainable communities strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Would provide incentives for more compact development, reduced driving, greater housing choices and conservation of farmland and habitat.

Clean Energy. SB 411 (Simitian and Perata) would require investor-owned utilities to meet a Renewables Portfolio Standard of at least 33 percent by 2020.

Cleaner Air at Ports. SB 974 (Lowenthal) would charge containers shipped through the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland in order to raise money for air quality and transportation improvements.

Land Use/Fire Protection. SB 1500 (Kehoe) would allow the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to require local governments to guarantee adequate structural fire protection before approving development in high-fire-hazard State Responsibility Areas.

Fire Protection. SB 1617 (Kehoe) would establish a fair and equitable new fee on homes in State Responsibility Areas to fund some of the costs of their fire protection. The fee would be tiered to give incentives for reducing fire risks, and would also fund proactive prevention activities.

Safer Products. AB 1879 (Feuer and Huffman) would give the Department of Toxic Substances Control the authority to establish safeguards to protect people and the environment from consumer products containing known toxins like lead, mercury and arsenic.

Recycling Mercury Thermostats. AB 2347 (Ruskin) would require manufacturers to establish a program for recycling thermostats containing mercury, a potent neurotoxin.

Water Conservation. AB 2175 (Laird and Feuer) would establish numeric water savings targets for urban and agricultural water use and require a 20% reduction in statewide urban per capita water use by 2020.

Outdoor Education. AB 2989 (Fuentes) would create a permanent program in the Department of Parks and Recreation that would award grants to schools and non-profit groups that provide outdoor education and recreational opportunities for youth.

CALIFORNIA BILL WOULD BAN TEFLON CHEMICALS IN FOOD PACKAGING

California families should be able to enjoy pizza or popcorn without fear that toxic chemicals will harm our families.

That was Sierra Club California Director Bill Magavern's message on Tuesday, when he joined Senator Ellen Corbett, the Environmental Working Group, United Steelworkers and California Labor Federation at a press conference in support of a new bill to remove toxic PFCs from food packaging.

Below are excerpts from EWG's press release.

SACRAMENTO – Your french-fry container or pizza box may be delivering a dose of toxic chemicals with your meal. Those and many other types of food packages have stain-proof or grease-proof linings made with chemicals called PFCs – the same chemicals used to make Teflon – that are linked in animal tests to cancer or reproductive harm.

State Sen. Ellen M. Corbett of San Leandro has introduced a bill, SB 1313, that would make California the first state to ban two of the most worrisome PFCs in food packaging. The bill, sponsored by Environmental Working Group (EWG), would prohibit more than trace amounts of PFCs called PFOS and PFOA in any material used to package food, beginning in 2010.

“Despite the fact that most consumers believe the packaging surrounding their food is safe, the reality is that many kinds of food packaging contain toxic chemicals that can cause harm to children’s health and the environment,” said Corbett.

For decades, PFOA and PFOS have been used in packaging for fast-food sandwiches, french fries, pizza, baked goods, beverages and candy. Today they contaminate the entire planet, from Arctic polar bears to the blood of virtually every American. Federal health officials have detected the chemicals in 98 percent of people tested, and EWG found them in the umbilical cord blood of 10 of 10 newborn babies.

PFOA is considered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a likely carcinogen and a chemical that induces breast tumors in animals. In addition, PFOA and PFOS have been linked to pregnancy problems that can include developmental complications.

State Will Finally Clean Southern California Nuclear Meltdown Site, Thanks to Community Watchdogs, Sen. Kuehl, and Assemblymember Brownley

By Collin Fisher, Research Analyst, Sierra Club California

The nuclear industry frequently explains away the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents as the only blemishes on an otherwise stellar safety record. But the past fifty years have seen hundreds of releases of radioactive materials and gases from nuclear operations. Many of these incidents have been kept secret by the industry or government agency involved. The Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) is one example of a single site that experienced many major incidents that exposed residential and commercial areas in the Los Angeles and Simi Valley areas to radiation.

Occurring from the 1950s and until as late as 1994, many of the accidents involving nuclear reactors and radioactive waste were kept secret by Rocketdyne and various other private corporate entities that owned and operated the SSFL. Indeed, the SSFL was a pioneering site for developing and experimenting on America’s rocket engines and nuclear reactors. Of the ten nuclear reactors operating at Santa Susana, four of them experienced major accidents and meltdowns. A meltdown in 1959 exposed the surrounding area to over 458 times the amount of radiation released at Three Mile Island. This meltdown was kept from the public until it was exposed in 1979 by Daniel Hirsch, a University of California lecturer and expert on nuclear issues. Hirsch, the President of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, has worked with the residents near the SSFL Lab since then, first to successfully shut down the reactors and more recently to clean up the contamination on the site, which is now owned by Boeing.

The efforts of Hirsch and other community watchdogs led to Senate Bill 990, legislation passed last year requiring a proper and complete clean-up of Santa Susana. The bill was introduced by State Senator Sheila Kuehl, who has fought tenaciously for decontamination for many years, and co-authored by Julia Brownley, a rookie Assemblymember who persistently pushed the bill through her house with the help of many environmental, health and community groups, including Sierra Club California. Governor Schwarzenegger signed SB 990 in October of last year, over Boeing’s loud objections, but simultaneously issued a statement calling for new legislation to repeal its operative provisions because some in his administration believed the cleanup standards of SB 990 were too stringent.

Sierra Club California joined Committee to Bridge the Gap and many other advocates for the full decontamination of SSFL in petitioning the administration to keep SB 990 intact. Secretary of Environmental Protection Linda Adams personally intervened and listened to the advocates at great length, becoming convinced that the best way forward was to proceed under the health-protective SB 990 standards. On January 14th, 2008, the Governor agreed to reverse his original stance and call for the highest standard of cleaning for the SSFL.
The passage of this decontamination legislation stands as a fine example of what can happen when public-interest advocates persistently pursue justice and enlightened public officials put the community’s health ahead of a polluter’s profits.

"Green Chemistry Initiative" Should Yield Chemical Safeguards

Today Cal-EPA issued its Green Chemistry Report.
The California Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Chemistry Initiative is a serious effort to address the hazards posed by toxic chemicals. Most Californians would be surprised to find out that our state government has no authority to assure that the goods sold at our local stores are safe for our families. The Green Chemistry Initiative has the potential to fix this problem – but only if it survives intense lobbying by the chemical industry.

Cal-EPA has gone all out to make the process of reforming chemical policy inclusive and interactive. Now that today’s report has laid out the options, the administration must begin the hard work of deciding which alternatives to adopt and which ones to propose in legislation.

The Green Chemistry process should result in major new statutory authority for the state’s experts to protect us from toxins that are currently allowed to contaminate our bodies and our environment. Voluntary measures and recognition of best practices have their place, but the only way to ensure meaningful reductions in human and environmental exposures to harmful chemicals is through enforceable safeguards. Collecting the most comprehensive and current data available is one essential building block of those safeguards.

The Legislature should give DTSC the authority to, if warranted by scientific evidence from the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, ban or restrict the usage of particular chemicals in consumer products. The process could be patterned on the Air Resources Board’s program that has successfully reduced emissions from consumer products.

Cal-EPA’s scientific experts will need to set priorities in addressing hazardous substances, and should start by protecting the most vulnerable people, like children. Our government must ensure that products many infants are exposed to -- from baby bottles to toys to baby food containers -- will be safe for the next generation.

Furthermore, manufacturers of products containing hazardous materials should be held responsible for the safe disposition of those products at the end of their useful lives. The Integrated Waste Management Board should work with the Legislature to require extended producer responsibility for such products, and should exercise that authority by prioritizing consumer products that, when discarded, become hazardous wastes (like mercury-containing thermostats).

Environmentalist Pressure Removes Water Board Member

Sam Wakim with vitriolic conservative commentator Ann Coulter, at the 2004 National GOP Convention.

He’s a right-wing Republican activist who lives in the Central Valley. So what’s he doing on the North Coast Water Board?

Sam Wakim is the Chair of the Siskiyou County Republican Party and is a leading candidate to replace Doug LaMalfa in representing the Second Assembly District, which encompasses the Northern Central Valley, plus Modoc and Siskiyou counties. He was appointed to the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board in November of 2006.

Wakim currently resides in the town of Mount Shasta, and runs a dental practice in Yreka. Though he does maintain a business office that is (just barely) within the boundaries of the North Coast Water Board region, one has to wonder how you can serve on the North Coast Water Board and simultaneously seek to represent the Central Valley in the Assembly.

Residency requirements are not Wakim’s only problem. His ideological perspective comes through at Board meetings, with belittling comments such as referring to the Karuk Tribe’s sacred World Renewal Ceremony (which requires ritual cleansings in the Klamath River for 10 days) as their “little festival”, and pushing back against staff (and other Board members’) efforts to address the public health concerns of toxic algae blooms in the Klamath River system. The toxic algae blooms are among the worst in the world, exceeding World Health Organization standards by more than 100 times.






Sample driver's license from Sam Wakim's web site.





Wakim also runs his own personal blog (under the pseudonym Abu David) which provides additional insights and concerns about his politics. For example, his post lambasting Senator Gil Cedillo for carrying a bill to provide driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants includes this intemperate mock license.

Sierra Club California opposes the confirmation of Sam Wakim’s appointment to the North Coast Water Board, which is scheduled to be heard before the Senate Rules Committee next Wednesday. We believe the Governor can, and should, do better. Though we have been quite critical of a few of Schwarzenegger’s appointments, he has generally made many quality appointments, and we are frankly perplexed at how Wakim ended up in an important environmental post.

The North Coast has many complex water quality challenges, and the public deserves a better appointment to this important seat. The Water Board should not be used as a political stepping-stone, nor as a venue for exerting right-wing ideology. We call upon the Senate to reject his confirmation, and the Governor to make an appointment better suited to represent the interests of the public on the North Coast.

UPDATE: Sam Wakim resigned on Thursday. Please see this Sacramento Bee story for more details. We look forward to working with the Schwarzenegger Administration on appropriate appointees for this and other vacant positions on the North Coast Water Board.