House Reorganizes
Appropriations Subcommittees, Scattering Constituencies and Complicating FY06
Appropriations Process
U.S. House Appropriations Committee Chair Jerry Lewis (R-CA),
acting under orders from Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), announced in mid-February
that he had consolidated the traditional 13 Appropriations Subcommittees into
ten new subcommittees. The move scatters important healthy housing issue constituencies
across several new subcommittees and has complicated the FY06 Congressional
appropriations process.
Some of the appropriations subcommittees in the House,
such as Agriculture and Defense, remain intact in the reorganization. However,
agencies that work on healthy homes issues, such as HUD and EPA, find themselves
in completely new subcommittees. HUD has been moved into the Transportation,
Treasury, and Housing Subcommittee, which also includes appropriations authority
for the District of Columbia, while EPA has been moved into the new Interior
and Environment Subcommittee. CDC and the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
remain in the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee.
Lewis’ move complicates the FY06 appropriations process
because his counterpart in the Senate, Chair Thad Cochran (R-MS), has declined
to reorganize the Senate appropriations subcommittees in a similar fashion,
due to significant opposition from current subcommittee chairs. At least for
now, the Senate will keep its current 13-subcommittee structure, which will
not line up with the House’s new subcommittee organization. Experts from
Congressional Quarterly and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities point
out the logical conclusion to this situation—several House and Senate
appropriations bills, including those giving budget authority to HUD, EPA, and
NIEHS, will fail to correspond, increasing the potential for protracted Conference
Committee negotiations and a good possibility that many agencies will find their
budgets rolled into yet another omnibus appropriations bill in August 2005 or
later.
To track the latest developments on these and other FY06
budget issues, visit the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities at www.cbpp.org.
Massachusetts
Legislators Introduce Bill Requiring Insurance Plans to Cover Asthma Education
Two Massachusetts state legislators have introduced a bill
to help asthmatic children and adults receive education and disease management
tools they need to better control their symptoms and minimize the risk of a
severe asthma attack.
The bill would require public and private health insurers
in the state to pay for education and training for patient self-management of
asthma when a certified asthma health care provider delivers such education.
Providers would include doctors and certified asthma educators. The education
covered could be provided during an extended visit to the doctor’s office,
at the patient’s home, or in a group classroom setting.
The education and training covered by the bill would include
components to increase patient knowledge of their medicines, reduce major asthma
incidents and hospitalizations, reduce school and work days lost to asthma symptoms,
and help patients to manage their asthma through a variety of intervention methods.
The bill is supported by the Boston Urban Asthma Coalition
and several other asthma and children’s health care advocates. For more
information, call BUAC’s Jean Zotter at 617-279-2271.
CA Air Resources
Board Warns Against Indoor Air “Purifiers”
The California Air Resources Board (ARB) has issued a warning
against using indoor air “purifiers.” The devices are marketed as
indoor air cleaners, indoor air purifiers, and personal air purifiers, and claim
to remove odors, pollen, pet dander, and bacteria from the air. However, the
ARB and the U.S. EPA found that the machines emit large amounts of ozone, which
can pose hazards, especially to those with asthma, emphysema, and other respiratory
diseases. In addition, the ARB and EPA have determined that most indoor air
purifiers are not effective at destroying bacteria, removing foul odors, or
reducing levels of pollen, pet dander, or environmental tobacco smoke.
NY Appellate
Court Rejects Challenge to New York City’s Lead Law
In February, a five-judge panel of New York State’s
Appellate Division (First Department) rejected appeals from landlords and landlord
associations that sought to overturn New York City’s recently enacted
childhood lead poisoning law, Local Law 1 (2004).
The judges unanimously affirmed a September 2004 ruling
from Supreme Court Judge Lewis York that threw out the landlords’ and
associations’ suits. York’s decision held that the lead poisoning
prevention ordinance did not violate landlords’ and associations’
due process rights and that the groups did not have standing to sue the city
by claiming that the city council failed to conduct adequate environmental reviews
before the ordinance was passed.
The appeals court said that the landlords’ claim
that the ordinance will lead to a reduction in the availability of affordable
housing in New York City, and that childhood lead poisoning will increase under
the law, was entirely speculative. The court also firmly upheld York’s
holding that the ordinance does not violate due process and stated that the
law’s rebuttable presumption—that all buildings constructed before
1960 contain some lead-based paint—is rational.
DC Water
Utility Violated Federal Law with False Claims about Lead Safety
The U.S. EPA announced in late January that the Washington,
DC, Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) falsely claimed that drinking water in
more than 400 homes located in the District had safe levels of lead in 2003.
Those claims, plus WASA’s failure to replace old lead service lines, are
a violation of federal law.
Following the announcement, EPA ordered WASA to notify
the homeowners affected by the false safety claims, to offer those homeowners
new lead tests, and to alert residents of those homes to flush their water for
several minutes before using it. The agency also told WASA that the water authority
must replace 500 additional service lines containing lead in order to be in
compliance with the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.
WASA asserted that it regretted making the false claims,
stating that they were “an error.” The water authority also laid
out plans to replace more than 2,000 lead service lines by the end of 2005.
In January 2004, the Washington Post reported
that WASA had been detecting high lead levels in drinking water in thousands
of District homes, starting in 2002, without notifying consumers of the risk.
Monroe
County, NY, Executive Makes Lead Poisoning Prevention Commitments
Monroe County (NY) Executive Maggie Brooks announced in
January that the county is prepared to deliver on promises made at the Community
Lead Summit in Rochester in June 2004 and made a series of commitments to help
reduce lead poisoning throughout the county.
In February, the county started a pilot program to determine
the most effective way to ensure that homes of families receiving economic assistance
from the county are lead-safe. Through the end of April, the county will identify
properties that have passed what is known as a Quality Home Inspection and that
are home to children under age six. Each of these properties will be inspected
again, and if lead hazards are discovered, owners will be ordered to make repairs.
Owners required to make repairs will also be encouraged to participate in Monroe
County’s HUD-funded lead hazard control grant, which will offer property
owners up to $3,500 to help offset repair costs.
The pilot project comes after Monroe County committed to
using HUD’s investigation standard for properties suspected of containing
lead-based paint hazards, a more stringent standard than that required by New
York State. The county also trained 572 people through an eight-hour Lead-Safe
Work Practices course in 2004.
For more information about lead poisoning prevention activities
in Monroe County, visit www.leadsafeby2010.org.
Chemical
Industry Attacks Respected Authors of Landmark Exposé
Twenty of America’s largest chemical manufacturers
have banded together to attack the respected authors of the landmark book that
exposed how the lead and vinyl chloride industries misled the public, the media,
and the United States government about the dangers their products posed to public
health and the environment.
Lawyers for Union Carbide, Dow Chemical, Goodyear, B.F.
Goodrich, Monsanto, and other prominent chemical industry firms have deposed
five of the peer reviewers who recommended publication of Deceit and Denial:
The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution, written by scholars Gerald
Markowitz of the City University of New York Grad Center and David Rosner of
Columbia University.
The companies have hired historian Philip Scranton of Rutgers
University, who has testified for the industry in a federal lawsuit against
chemical companies by a former worker who claims the companies are responsible
for his liver cancer. The worker says that his exposure to vinyl chloride monomer
caused his cancer, and Markowitz is one of the worker’s key expert witnesses.
Scranton, however, claims that Markowitz and Rosner’s research into the
vinyl chloride industry is “not valid,” that the book’s peer
review was “subverted,” and that the authors violated the code of
ethics of the American Historical Association (AHA). Scranton, though a historian,
is not an expert in the history or mechanisms of cancer-causing chemicals such
as vinyl chloride monomer.
AHA Vice President for Research Roy Rosenzweig strongly
disagrees with Scranton’s claims, saying, “I see nothing in Markowitz
and Rosner’s book that’s a violation of the AHA Standards. In my
opinion, the book [Deceit and Denial] represents the highest standards
of the history profession. Scranton should be embarrassed to make the claim
that there’s an ethical violation here—as opposed to the claim that
he disagrees with their interpretation.”
The motive of the chemical industry in deposing the book’s
peer reviewers and attacking the credibility of its authors is clear: the industry
faces enormous liability to workers and possibly to consumers should juries
begin to find them responsible for cancers caused by exposure to vinyl chloride
monomer.
Vinyl chloride monomer is the building block of polyvinyl
chloride (PVC). PVC, in turn, is used in a variety of consumer products, including
pipes, floor tiles, toys, shower curtains, mattress covers, and more. Workers
can be exposed to vinyl chloride monomer when it is made (vinyl chloride monomer
is not a naturally occurring chemical), during the manufacture of PVC, and when
consumer goods containing PVC are produced. Consumers can be exposed to vinyl
chloride monomer when it “offgasses” from products like shower curtains
and mattress covers.
Polybrominated
Flame Retardants Emerge as Significant Healthy Homes Issue
Over the past two years, several studies and research papers
have reported the increasing presence of a certain class of flame retardants
in American and European homes. In January, Environmental Science & Technology
published the first peer-reviewed study of the presence of polybrominated diphenyl
ethers (PDBEs) in American house dust, making the chemicals an emerging healthy
homes issue.
The study, conducted by Heather Stapleton of the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), concludes that house dust appears
to be the main route of PDBE exposure for Americans. The study also indicates
that children in the most contaminated homes may be ingesting PDBE at levels
close to those that cause adverse behavioral effects in animals. As with many
healthy homes issues, children living in substandard housing with inadequate
ventilation systems may be at higher risk of PDBE exposure.
Stapleton’s study found PDBEs in every home tested,
underscoring the ubiquitous presence of the chemicals in the United States.
PDBEs are used in products like computers, stereos, televisions, and many types
of furniture to prevent fires. The exact way the chemicals become part of house
dust is unclear, but because they are not chemically bound to treated products,
it is possible that they escape over time and become stuck to dust particles.
PDBEs are suspected endocrine disruptors, meaning they
may adversely affect human hormone systems and organs, including the thyroid.
Experts have called for more research into the exact health effects from PDBE
exposure.
IRS Tells
Foundations They May Fund Nonprofit Lobbying
In a letter circulated in January, the Internal Revenue
Service (IRS) clarified the circumstances under which private, charitable foundations
may engage in and fund nonprofit lobbying activities. The letter dispelled the
myth that private foundations cannot fund nonprofit lobbying or nonprofits that
engage in advocacy work. The letter showed that community foundations also have
latitude to both lobby and make grants for activities that include lobbying.
The IRS also offered suggested language related to lobbying that foundations
can use in their grant award letters to nonprofits. Charity Lobbying in the
Public Interest has made the full text of the letter available at http://clpi.org/lobby_law_hm.html#LOBBYING%20AND%20FUNDING.
National Environmental
Education Week is April 10-16
The 2005 National Environmental Education Week is April
10-16 and will be the single largest environmental education event in the United
States this year. The observance includes a full seven days of educational programming
in preparation for Earth Day and will involve 400,000 educators and 15 million
American students.
Schools, teachers, community-based organizations, students
groups and clubs, parents, and other individuals are encouraged to get involved
in this observance by signing on as a partner; listing the Week on their websites
and providing an informational link; encouraging teachers, staff, members, and/or
constituents to participate; and supporting community-based activities on Earth
Day, Friday, April 22.
CDC and
EPA Issue Low-Literacy Asthma Management Brochure
CDC and EPA have published a low-literacy brochure to help
families manage their children’s asthma. Help Your Child Gain Control
Over Asthma contains two parts—Part I is a practical “how-to”
on designing an asthma management plan with a child’s doctor, and Part
II offers common-sense suggestions on controlling common asthma triggers. Triggers
identified in the brochure are most often found in the home and include pet
dander, mold and excessive moisture, dust mites, environmental tobacco smoke,
cockroaches, pesticides and other household chemicals, and fumes from improperly
vented combustion appliances such as stoves and water heaters. Many of the tips
and suggestions in the brochure can also be used to effectively manage adult
asthma.
The EPA has launched a new consolidated Spanish website
as part of the agency’s ongoing efforts to disseminate environmental information
to a larger number of people. The new website centralizes EPA’s Spanish
language information on lead poisoning prevention, asthma management, and pesticide
use in one location. The site offers Spanish language materials on environmental
health and educational resources for students and teachers. It also highlights
information about EPA grants, career opportunities with the agency, and small
business opportunities. To browse the website, visit www.epa.gov/espanol.
New Affordable
Comfort Website Resource Available
Affordable Comfort, an organization that seeks to
advance the performance of residential buildings through home performance education,
has officially launched its revamped website. The new website, at www.affordablecomfort.org,
contains a more comprehensive resource section with news, press releases, technical
articles, and links, as well as information on hosting events, serving on a
committee, information for presenters, and updated information on upcoming Affordable
Comfort conferences.
Funding Opportunities
The National Institute of Environmental Health
Sciences (NIEHS) and its parent agency, the National Institutes of Health, are
calling for proposals for Community-Based Participatory Research Grants. These
projects should further the goal of reducing the burden of environmentally associated
diseases and health conditions by 1) providing the scientific basis for understanding
the impact of the environment on human health; 2) translating this information
into prevention and intervention strategies; 3) evaluating the efficacy of prevention
and intervention strategies; and 4) communicating the results to the public
and improving public health. All projects must be conducted in communities and
must allow community members, affected persons, and other key stakeholders the
opportunity to be full participants in each phase of the project, including
grant proposal development. FY 2005 grant proposals are due May 17, 2005. More
details are available at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-05-026.html#PartI.
The US Environmental Protection Agency has announced a
call for applications for its Environmental Justice Small Grants Program. The
program funds eligible community-based organizations to support projects that
address a community’s exposure to multiple environmental harms and risks.
To be eligible to receive financial assistance, community-based organizations
must be non-governmental, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations located in the affected
community. The focus for this year's program is collaborative partnerships.
Each applicant must demonstrate collaboration between local community-based
organizations and others (industry, federal, state and local governments, academia,
and environmental organizations) to realize their project goals and objectives.
This program will fund two kinds of projects: Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA research) and multi-media. The CERCLA
grant recipients will implement projects that are specifically research oriented
and specific to hazardous substances. Multi-media grant winners will address
pollution in more than one environmental medium (e.g., land, air, water). Details
are available at www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/publications/ej/grants/small-grants-guidance-2005.pdf.
The Spanish translation of this application is available at www.epa.gov/compliance/environmentaljustice/grants/ej_smgrants.html.
Upcoming Conferences
Vermont Law School will be hosting Pollution’s Progeny:
The Impact of Environmental Toxins on Our Reproductive Health on March 17 and
18 in South Royalton, Vermont. The conference will explore those toxins in our
environment that are having a devastating effect on the reproductive systems
of women and men alike. These chemicals enter our environment from industrial
sources and even everyday consumer products. As our body burden of toxins increases,
researchers are seeing higher incidences of cancer, sterility, and other health
impacts that may be linked to these substances. What are these chemicals and
where do they come from? How can we protect ourselves from these chemicals?
The conference will help answer these questions and more. For more information,
contact Jessica Dexter at jdexter@vermontlaw.edu
or Emma Sisti at esisti@vermontlaw.edu.
The Indoor Environmental Health & Technologies Conference
and the Lead and Healthy Homes Grantees Conference will be held jointly in New
Orleans, April 4-7. The conference will examine new findings in environmental
health; the need to close the gap between research and public policy; available
resources on children’s health and the environment; collaboration between
public agencies and community groups; primary prevention strategies in housing,
schools, and daycare facilities; low-cost lead hazard control methods; funding
opportunities apart from federal grants; updates on state and federal legislative
efforts regarding lead hazard control and healthy homes programs; and more.
For more information, visit www.leadmoldconferences.com
or call the conference hotline at 1-800-590-6522.
Pittsburgh 2005: Health and the Environment will take place
at the Herberman Conference Center at the University of Pittsburgh, April 7-9.
The first regional meeting of the Collaborative on Health and the Environment
in Pennsylvania, the event will bring together health professionals, researchers,
patient groups, advocacy organizations, and the general public to discuss the
current state of environmental health in Pennsylvania and ways to protect future
generations from environmental harm. More information is available at www.che-penn.org
or by calling Kathy Lawson at 412-341-1515, ext. 206.
The Center for Civic Partnerships will host the Healthy
Cities and Smart Growth: Planning for Healthier Communities conference on April
21 and 22 in Berkeley, CA. The conference will explore themes such as the built
environment and health, community growth and change, community livability and
social equity, and resource development. For more information, see www.civicpartnerships.org/default.asp?id=315
or call 916-646-8680.
Indianapolis will host the 2005 Affordable Comfort Conference
from May 16-21. Conference participants will have available 57 short courses
and 96 sessions categorized into 18 tracks, covering issues such as home performance,
heating and cooling, and weatherization. For more information about the conference,
see www.affordablecomfort.org.
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