Without question, this latest report from the Washington Post underscores why the EPA has been lobbying for major reforms in the Toxic Substances Control Act passed into law some 35 years ago.

The number of potentially toxic chemicals under the EPA's jurisdiction has grown over the years to an estimated 84,000. We're using the adjective "estimated" here because nearly 20 percent of the chemicals under the EPA's tissue paper-like jurisdiction have been kept secret by law from almost all federal regulators and the public, thanks to a federal policy crafted in 1976 to protect big business from pilfering trade secrets from each other, and the public who would like to know what toxic substance is poisoning our water.

Although very few folks really know how many of the "estimated" 17,000 chemicals being kept under wraps by the EPA are truly harmless, the percentages reported by the Government Accountability Office don't look encouraging.

For one, of the 700 chemicals introduced every year on average in America, 95 percent of their manufacturers asked for some level of secrecy. More importantly, a March 2009 review of federally mandated substantial risk reports found that more than half of the 65 filed were connected to chemicals whose origin and composition are kept secret by the EPA. Even worse, 151 of these secret chemicals are produced in quantities exceeding 1 million tons every year, and 10 of them are used to make products targeted for kids.

To the good, more than 530 chemicals were declassified by an Obama administration appointee last summer during his first week as an assistant administrator. But the effect may be incremental at best: Many of those once "secret" chemicals had already appeared in trade journals and on Web sites.

Washington Post January 4, 2010

Washington Post: Short Stack December 9, 2009