Chemical Health Risk Disclosure Voted by House

The House narrowly voted late Thursday to force chemical companies to disclose emission of substances suspected of causing cancer, birth defects or other chronic health problems.

By a 183-166 vote, the House amended legislation reauthorizing the Superfund toxic waste cleanup law to require not only disclosure of emitted substances that could kill immediately but also those whose health effects might not be felt for years.

“The people we represent have a right to know if they are being exposed to chemicals that could potentially kill them, regardless of whether they died suddenly or over a decade,” said Rep. Bob Edgar (D-Pa.), who introduced the measure. “In my opinion, the result is just as tragic no matter when it happens.”

The environmentalist-backed requirement was approved after heated floor debate in which opponents attacked the measure as overly broad and a potential hardship to business.

Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) complained that it would apply to gas stations, dry cleaners, printers and even silk-screeners, who would be unable to afford the monitoring requirement.

“It covers anything that can cause flat feet to falling hair and everything in between,” he said.

But Edgar insisted that no more than 150 substances would fall under the description and noted that the Environmental Protection Agency would have discretion in determining the specifics of the requirements. Most small businesses would be exempted, he said.

“We’re not talking about rashes,” he said. “We’re talking about cancer. We’re talking about serious health effects.”

Industry Complaints

Industry officials have complained that such requirements would impose burdensome paper work without providing useful information for determining health risks. They also complained that technology to measure some kinds of emissions does not exist.

Substances that would be covered under the measure include asbestos, PCBs, benzene, vinyl chloride and dioxin.

New Jersey and Maryland, which currently require companies to monitor and disclose emissions of such substances, receive good industry cooperation, Edgar said. If emission information could not be obtained from monitoring equipment, engineering estimates would be acceptable, he said.

Without Edgar’s amendment, the pending Superfund bill would have required disclosure only of chemicals considered so acutely hazardous that their emission would cause immediate injury or death--such as methyl isocyanate, which killed more than 2,000 people in Bhopal, India, last year.

“It’s like outlawing hand grenades because they’re dangerous, but saying activated time bombs are OK,” said Rep. Gerry Sikorski (D-Minn.), who co-authored the stricter requirement with Edgar.

Debate to Resume

The vote came during the first day of House debate on extending the Superfund law, which would provide $10 billion over the next five years to clean up the most dangerous toxic waste dumps in the nation. The House is expected to resume debate on the measure today.

During the last five years, Superfund spent $1.6 billion and cleaned up six dumps, one of which was recently found to be leaking toxic chemicals and must be cleaned again.

The Senate has already passed a $750-billion cleanup program with a similar disclosure requirement.