5 Years After TSCA Reform

5 YEARS AFTER TSCA REFORM
Strengthening Health Protection through Science

Panel discussion  |  Friday, June 25, 2021

 

Five years ago Congress amended the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in an effort to strengthen the law and protect people from harmful chemicals. Unfortunately, implementation of the law has failed to use the best available science or prioritize vulnerable populations.

PRHE has closely monitored EPA's actions, submitting public comments and developing recommendations in collaboration with PRHE's Science Response Network, signed by hundreds of scientists, clinicians, and professional organizations. During the panel, science policy experts discussed key issues that EPA must address to improve how science is used to identify and prevent harmful exposures and protect the public's health.

 

 

Panel presenters

Tracey Woodruff, MPH, PhD is the Alison S. Carlson Endowed Professor in UCSF's Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences and the Director of PRHE. She is a globally recognized scientific expert on environmental pollution exposures and impacts on prenatal and child health and health equity. Before joining UCSF, she was a senior scientist and policy advisor for the Office of Policy.
 


 

Justin Onwenu is a Detroit based environmental justice organizer. He has worked for the Children's Environmental Health Initiative and Sierra Club where he fought for clean air, clean and affordable water, and a just economy for all communities. He currently serves as the youngest member of the Michigan Advisory Council on Environmental Justice and Black Leadership Advisory Council, both under the direction of Governor Gretchen Whitmer. He has also published opinion pieces for The New York Times, The Hill, The Guardian, and the Detroit News on environmental justice and on a variety of other social justice topics.

 

Trish Koman, MPP, PhD is an investigator at the University of Michigan School of Public Health Environmental Health Sciences department. She co-chairs the Chemicals and Health committee for the American Public Health Association, recently receiving a Distinguished Service Award. She has been an advocate for public health protection for over 25 years as a scientist at the EPA. At EPA, she authored the landmark national air pollution standards for the fine particulate matter and managed multi-disciplinary benefit-cost analyses, regulatory programs, and technological innovation initiatives.

 

Daniel Rosenberg is the Director of Federal Toxics Policy in NRDC's People and Communities Program. He works on both legislative and regulatory policy, with a current focus on implementation of the Toxics Substances Control Act, defending public right-to-know laws and addressing the PFAS crisis. Prior to working on Toxics issues at NRDC, Daniel served as environmental counsel to Senator Frank Lautenberg; before that, he spent five years in NRDC's Water program, where he focused primarily on federal Clean Water Act policies to protect wetlands. Daniel is a graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center.

 

Thank you to the North American Chapter of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology for co-sponsoring and to Detroit Public TV's One Detroit channel for broadcasting the event.

 

 

 

 

 

Background reading about TSCA: