EPA gives Congress a heads-up on toxic chemicals

EPA gives Congress a heads-up on toxic chemicals

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-09-29-epa-toxins_N.htm?csp=24&RM_Exclude=Juno

By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY
SAN FRANCISCO — The Obama administration is announcing new principles to guide Congress in updating the 33-year-old law that governs how the Environmental Protection Agency controls toxic chemicals, saying the current law is inadequate to protect against risks.

"The American people are looking to government for assurance that chemicals have been assessed using the best available science and that unacceptable risks haven't been ignored — and unfortunately the current law doesn't allow us to grant them that assurance," EPA administrator Lisa Jackson told reporters in a briefing.