Federal Court: Roundup Subject to US EPA Review

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the  Environmental Protection Agency must reevaluate glyphosate, a weedkiller used in Roundup. The court determined that the chemical poses a serious health hazard and is likely to cause human cancer. 

Burn Pit Benefits: The US Senate Passed The Pact Act

The burn pit benefit bill now heads back to the US House of Representatives before going to President Biden’s desk to be signed into law; The PACT Act is named in honor of Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson of Ohio.

EPA Proposes to Ban Ongoing Uses of Asbestos

In a historic step, the US Environmental Protection Administration [EPA] is moving to protect people from cancer risks and is moving to ban asbestos in the US. The EPA has proposed its first-ever risk management rule under the 2016 Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act.

President Biden Supports Burn Pits Exposure Benefits for Veterans

Veterans who suffer from medical conditions following exposure to toxic burn pit hazards and chemicals received support from President Biden last night. President's State of the Union Address included strong presidential support for health care benefits and wartime disability compensation. A burn pit is used to burn solid waste in open-air without equipment.

Biden Administration Targets Occupational Exposure to PFAS

The Biden-Harris Administration announced accelerated efforts to protect American workers from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which can cause severe health problems and persist in the environment once released, posing a severe threat across rural, suburban, and urban areas. 

Across Two Separate Settlements, EPA Commits to Expedite and Strengthen Asbestos Risk Reevaluation Under TSCA

The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), an independent nonprofit dedicated to preventing asbestos exposure, announced it had reached two landmark legal settlements with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that strengthen and broaden its work to evaluate the health risks of asbestos under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). 

VA To Expand Medical Care for Burn Pit Claims

The Secretary of the US Veterans Administration announced today a major policy change regarding burn pit exposures.

Rubio, Gillibrand Introduce Landmark Burn Pits Legislation to Help Veterans

U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced the bipartisan and bicameral Presumptive Benefits for War Fighters Exposed to Burn Pits and Other Toxins Act. U.S. Representatives Raul Ruiz, M.D (D-CA) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) will introduce the legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives. This bill would provide presumptive U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs benefits to servicemembers who have deployed and have illnesses due to exposure to burn pits and other toxins. Approximately 3.5 million veterans have been exposed to burn pits that spewed toxic fumes and carcinogens into the air.

Health Advocates Petition 9th Circuit for Asbestos Relief from EPA’s Flawed Final Risk Evaluation for Asbestos

Joined by five public health groups and six leading asbestos scientists, the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing asbestos exposure, today asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to review the asbestos risk evaluation issued last month by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

NJ Files Lawsuits Against Two Waterfront Sites for Contamination

As part of the State of New Jersey’s continuing commitment to protect public health and restore natural resources degraded by those who refuse accountability, Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal and Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Catherine R. McCabe today announced the filing of two lawsuits to compel the clean-up of contamination and recover Natural Resource Damages (NRDs).

Lessons from Asbestos Litigation Apply to COVID Claims

The rapid emergence of COVID-19 creates new challenges for the nation’s patchwork of state run workplace benefit delivery systems. This paper draws a comparison between COVID claims and asbestos claims, the “Largest and Longest” wave of occupational disease claims in the United States. The comparison offers insight into avoiding past economic, administrative and benefit delivery pitfalls. The lessons from asbestos claims provide an insight into maintaining a sustainable workers’ compensation system to meet the surge of COVID claims.

Asbestos: Strict Liability Imposed Against Product Manufacturers for Ordinary Product Life

The NJ Supreme Court decided an asbestos product liability case that mandates strict liability against manufacturers or distributors of products that contain asbestos-fiber. The court in granting strict liability for failure to adequately warn ultimate users during the ordinary life of the product of the dangers. The Court aligned NJ common law with the US Supreme Court, the NY Court of appeals and the Maryland Court of Appeals.

Fourteen Attorney Generals Criticizes EPA for Failing to Protect Americans from Asbestos, a Long-Known Dangerous Carcinogen

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, leading a coalition of 14 attorneys general, including New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal, submitted comments criticizing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) finding that certain uses of asbestos present no unreasonable risk to human health. In the comment letter, the coalition argues that the EPA’s draft risk evaluation for asbestos violates the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and Congress' intent that the EPA consider all uses of asbestos in its evaluation. The coalition notes the finding is unsupported by the EPA's own assessment and urges the agency to obtain the information it has admitted it needs to conduct the necessary, thorough evaluations of the risks presented by this chemical.

NJ Gov Murphy Announces Legislation to Overhaul New Jersey’s Anti-Workplace Harassment Laws for Public and Private Employers

Division on Civil Rights (DCR) Releases Corresponding Report Following Three Public Hearings Held by DCR and the New Jersey Coalition Against Sexual Assault (NJCASA) in September 2019

Law Enacted to Phase-Out Use of Military Burn Pits

Recent legislation passed Congress and signed by the President last week mandates the  phase-out burn pits used by the United States military. The law provides for medical monitoring and health assessments of military members who have been exposed to toxic chemicals or airborne contaminants from burn pits. This legislation follows the dismissal, almost a year ago, of litigation against third-party contractors by service members, and their dependents, who became ill after alleged exposure to  the toxic fumes where burn pits were utilized in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

PFAS Contamination Legislation Advances

Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06) updated the public on legislation to address PFAS contamination and exposure. Last week, Pallone’s Energy and Commerce Committee passed comprehensive legislation to protect Americans from PFAS and clean up waste sites. The legislation is critical to stopping the flow of these harmful chemicals into our environment, drinking water, cooking products and more. It also ensures that polluters pay for the cleanup of these sites. According to a report, there are 517 water systems in New Jersey that are contaminated with PFAS.

Efforts to Protect the Public From Asbestos Exposure

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey today released a new report highlighting her office’s ongoing efforts to protect children, families, and workers from the health risks posed by exposure to asbestos.

White House Contamination Highlights Asbestos Controversy

Ivanka Trump, Kellyanne Conway and other senior White House aides have vacated their West Wing offices while asbestos is removed – even as the Trump administration is manipulating a federal chemical safety law to keep asbestos legal.

OSHA Cites NJ Landscaper After Two Employees Succumb to Carbon Monoxide Exposure

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited AJR Landscaping Inc. – based in Cresskill, New Jersey – for exposing employees to carbon monoxide (CO) after two workers succumbed to the toxic gas.

Limits for Toxic Plastics – No Asbestos Ban

Today, the Basel, Rotterdam, and Stockholm United Nations Conventions concluded, with some major steps taken by parties to control the trade and management of certain toxic chemicals: 

Basel Convention: Countries Take Major Step to Control Plastic Waste Dumping, Stop Major Loophole for Electronic Waste
Today, 187 countries took a major step forward in curbing the plastic waste crisis by adding plastic to the Basel Convention, a treaty that controls the movement of hazardous waste from one country to another. The amendments, originally proposed by Norway, require exporters to obtain the consent of receiving countries before shipping most contaminated, mixed, or unrecyclable plastic waste, providing an important tool for countries in the Global South to stop the dumping of unwanted plastic waste into their country. The decision reflects a growing recognition around the world of the toxic impacts of plastic and the plastic waste trade.

Because the US is not a party to the Convention, the amendments adopted today also act as an export ban on unsorted, unclean, or contaminated plastic waste for the US towards developing countries who are parties to the Convention and not part of the OECD. The amendment will have a similar effect for the EU, a party to the Convention, whose own internal legislation bans exports of waste included under the Convention to developing countries.

“Today’s decision demonstrates that countries are finally catching up with the urgency and magnitude of the plastic pollution issue and shows what ambitious international leadership looks like,” says David Azoulay, Environmental Health Director at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL). “Plastic pollution in general and plastic waste in particular remain a major threat to people and the planet, but we are encouraged by the decision of the Basel Convention as we look to the future bold decisions that will be needed to tackle plastic pollution at its roots, starting with reducing production.”
 
Countries halted a major loophole that would have allowed the continued export of electronic waste (e-waste), without proper controls. The proposed guidelines describing how e-waste is treated under the Basel Convention would have allowed countries to send equipment for repair without the prior informed consent procedure. The guidelines were ready for adoption, with wide support. The African region, India, and other countries, supported by civil society, raised a red flag about the inclusion of this loophole, and countries chose to continue negotiating the guidelines at the next COP, instead of adopting ineffective guidelines.
 
Countries established Low POPs Content Levels (LPCLs), which define the amount of POPs at which waste is considered hazardous waste. Under this designation, the waste must be disposed of in a way that destroys or irreversibly transforms its POPs content. LPCLs are key: Higher values mean that dangerous materials can, in practice, be recycled into everyday products, triggering further exposure to very toxic POPs. Mobilizing against very high values proposed by the EU, African countries and other recipient countries of waste managed to resist the extreme pressure from the EU and other developed countries, and obtained the inclusion of lower values together with the higher values proposed by the EU, opening the way for future work to lower the levels of POPs allowed in waste even further.
 
Parties considered a report on the role of the Basel Convention to regulate waste containing nanomaterials. It recommended the inclusion of certain nano-containing waste under the Basel Convention, and invited further work to identify those wastes that should be covered by the Convention. In a disappointing move, parties adopted a weak decision only requiring the collection of information on national initiatives to address nano-containing waste.

Stockholm Convention: Countries Pass Global Ban on Toxic PFOA
Parties to the Stockholm Convention passed a global ban of PFOA — a suspected carcinogen and endocrine disruptor that has contaminated drinking water in many parts of the world. The Stockholm Convention regulates persistent organic pollutants (POPs), some of the world’s worst chemicals that harm human health and build up in the environment and the body over time.

“While the global ban on PFOA marks an important step forward in protecting the environment and people’s health, we regret that countries undermined the scientific process of the Convention to include unjustified exemptions to the ban,” said Giulia Carlini, Staff Attorney at CIEL.

A number of wide-ranging five-year exemptions were included in the PFOA ban for firefighting foams, medical devices, and fluorinated polymers, among other uses. Though China, the European Union, and Iran participated in the scientific review process, they proposed exemptions that had not undergone scientific review or were reviewed and disqualified by the scientific committee.

“PFOA is one of the world’s worst chemicals, and yet countries have found ways to continue human exposure to its toxic harms. Tellingly, even some industry groups disagreed with some of the exemptions, as there are widely available alternatives to these chemicals,” says Carlini. “Countries’ insistence on including these exemptions — in spite of readily available alternatives and a lack of evidence — reveals a disrespect for the scientific review process at the heart of the Stockholm Convention.”

Rotterdam Convention: Countries Break 15 Years of Gridlock Using Voting Procedure for First Time Ever
In the first-ever vote taken under the Rotterdam Convention, 120 parties to the Stockholm Convention broke through gridlock and disagreement to establish a compliance mechanism for the Convention. The compliance mechanism will allow countries to be held accountable for not respecting their commitments under the Convention. After nearly 15 years of negotiations with little forward movement, countries decided that “all efforts to reach consensus had been exhausted” and opted instead to vote, for the first time in the history of the Convention. The adoption of the new mechanism through a vote means that only those parties in agreement to the provisions will be be subject to this mechanism. A total of 126 Parties voted, of which 120 agreed to the compliance mechanism and only six opposed.
 
Countries listed hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD), a toxic chemical used as a flame retardant, and phorate, a pesticide that is extremely toxic to humans, under the Rotterdam Convention’s Annex III, meaning that countries must get the prior informed consent of receiving countries in order to export these chemicals.
 
Unfortunately, countries failed to take action on the five other chemicals up for listing under Annex III of the Convention. In particular, chrysotile asbestos and paraquat, which have been reviewed and identified as chemicals of concerns by the Scientific Chemical Review Committee of the Convention, and have been on the agenda for years. A handful of countries repeatedly blocked the consensus required to list these chemicals under the Convention, undermining the scientific process underlying the Convention.

See also:

 India reverses stand on asbestos at Rotterdam Convention meet

EPA Asbestos Rule Announced: Still Leaves Deadly Carcinogen Legal

NJ Legislature Bans Asbestos

…. 

Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author of NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thomson-Reuters) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thomson-Reuters). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman 1.973.696.7900jon@gelmans.com has been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.