 Good afternoon. We're going to resume the commission's hearings on the petition on organo halogens Just to remind our speakers Each speaker will have five minutes to present their testimony The speakers will see behind me somebody flashing a card telling you how much time you have left and I apologize in advance for cutting You off, but this is a very very busy day in the same way that I'm cutting the commissioners off if we go too long All right, we have Several guests on panel five and I'd like to introduce them first We have Ms. Rachel Weintraub from the Consumer Federation of America Miss Katie Huffling from the Alliance of Nurses for Family Environments welcome Miss Kathleen Curtis clean and healthy New York and Mr. Jeff Gerhard from the Ecology Center and also the American Sustainable Business Council and finally But not least mr. Brian McGannon from the American Sustainable Business Council Miss Wine Troub, would you please begin? Yes, I'm Rachel Wine Troub Legislative Director in General Counsel at Consumer Federation of America I appreciate the opportunity to provide comments on the petition that CFA earth justice and others Submitted to the CPSC urging you to adopt mandatory standards under the FHSA to protect consumers from the health health hazards caused by the use of Non-polymeric additive form organo halogen flame retardants in children's products Furniture mattresses and the casing surrounding electronics I will discuss the CPSC's legal authority to adopt standards under the FHSA and why labeling is not adequate and some other things if I have time You heard earlier today from dr. Berm that all of the chemicals in this class have the capacity to cause injury which meets the FHSA Toxic standard. There's no formula for what is toxic nor is there a specific risk threshold before regulation is warranted Non-polymeric additive form organo halogen flame retardants pose chronic hazards to consumers because of their physical chemical and biological Properties through the reasonably foreseeable handling or use of children's products furniture mattresses and electronics Consumers can be exposed to these chemicals since they migrate out of the product Courts have not questioned that a variety of household products containing chemicals are hazardous substances and These courts have also given deference to the CPSC's determinations For example the Second Circuit Court of Appeals Agreed with the CPSC that foam spray paint intended for use by children is a hazardous substance under the FHSA The court deferred to the agency's interpretation and emphasized that the statute only required that the product may cause Substantial injury and did not require that the product would likely cause injury They're a solid precedent for regulating classes of products under the FHSA in toy manufacturers of America versus the CPSC a Toy manufacturer trade association challenged the FHSA rule which banned toys with small parts that pose choking hazards to young children The toy industry argued that the FHSA was intended to deal only with Specific individual articles and not with a broad range of products at the same time The court soundly rejected this argument saying that the FHSA does not require Slowly banding individual products and the legislative history appears clear in favoring general prescriptive regulations of the broadest most Comprehensive type the class of flame retardants in the petition is like small parts in toys These chemicals are intrinsically dangerous because of their inherent characteristics Consumer products in the four categories at issue pose hazards when they contain any organo halogen flame retardant because these Semi-violatal chemicals migrate out of the product and attached to other media such as house dust Thus for the purpose of being a hazardous substance under the FHSA Each foreseeable way that these four categories of products are used can pose risk of harm to consumers if these chemicals are added The CPSC has regulated products containing specific hazardous chemicals under the FHSA the request in this petition is Consistent with those previous actions the CPSC found that a number of substances are determined to be banned hazardous substances because They possess such a degree or nature of hazard that adequate cautionary labeling Can not be written and the public health and safety can be served only by keeping such articles out of interstate commerce Examples include the CPSC's ban of mixtures that are intended primarily for application to interior mason rewalls floors as a water repellent and These are also extremely flammable among many others The hazards posed by non polymeric additive form organo halogen flame retardants cannot be effectively dressed by a label When addressing a product safety hazard the safety hierarchy Establishes a recommended approach first to design it out second to guard and third to warn If a product poses a safety hazard to consumers the first and most effective step is to eliminate the hazard The lowest level of the hierarchy is warning consumers of the hazard and those only work sometimes warnings are generally most effective when the user already believes that the risk exists and warnings are least effective when there's no Perceived risk as there is with these chemicals Also, there's no particular type of use or behavior that a consumer could take to avoid adverse health impacts from such exposure I Also want to address the issue of the EPA There are numerous issues in our government where different agencies have different authority over what could appear to be similar issues however in this case and there are others who are much more familiar with the EPA who will be talking about this but the EPA's actions on Flame retardants is unclear at this point as it's been stated the 50 chemicals that are considered to be flame retardants have not been Identified as being chemicals in this class and there's broad broad agreement that Tosca is in need of reform and that chemical regulation in this country needs to be amended I thank you very much for your consideration Thank you so much miss Huffling Thank you so much Thank you for this opportunity to comment at this hearing today My name is Katie Huffling and I direct the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. I'm also a nurse and a nurse midwife The Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments is the only national nursing organization that focuses solely on environmental health issues Our mission is to promote healthy people in healthy environments by educating and leading the nursing profession Advancing research incorporating evidence-based practice and influencing policy We have over 3,000 members throughout the country our members include nurses from all walks of our profession hospital-based Public health school-based academic and advanced practice to name just a few Nurses are the most trusted profession and we take our duties very seriously when providing education To patients and working to prevent disease The main work of our organization occurs through the generous volunteer work of our nurses through our policy and advocacy work group These nurses have led engagement of health professionals on the serious issues related to flame retardants and health Our work has been guided by the American Nurses Association Resolution nursing practice chemical exposure and right to know which advocates a course of action that reduces the use of toxic chemicals demands adequate information on the health effects of chemicals and chemicals and products before they are introduced on the market and Creates more streamlined methods for toxic chemicals to be removed from use Based on this resolution nurses need to advocate for consumer products that are free of toxic chemicals as part of their standard of practice I'm highly concerned that pregnant women the growing fetus and our children are being exposed to halogenated flame retardants every day It's my job to help women have the healthiest pregnancy as possible As such I recognize the importance of having normal thigh levels of thyroid hormones during pregnancy and monitors for symptoms of thyroid dysfunction so that action can quickly be taken if an abnormality is found That this class of flame retardants are structurally similar to thyroid hormone and have been shown to disrupt thyroid function is highly concerning Thyroid disruption during pregnancy can have a negative impact on fetal brain development as well as other poor pregnancy outcomes With one in six kids in the US now facing lifelong challenges of developmental disabilities such as autism and attention deficit Hyperactivity disorder we need to seriously address chemicals that could be a component of this alarming trend I'm also concerned with the effects of halogenated flame retardants on fertility Elevated PBDE levels in human breast milk have been correlated with undescended testes as well as decreased testes size and decreased sperm counts As infertility is increasing in this country. We need to be addressing these possible chemical origins As a nurse midwife, I'm frequently asked which products are safe to use with their baby which nursing pillow would I recommend? What's the best crib to buy? Due to the limited information we have on many of the flame retardants addressed in this petition It can be very challenging as a provider to offer advice on the safest products This is especially frustrating when it's been shown that these toxic chemicals are not even provided a added flame of protection And speaking with my pediatric nurse colleagues They described how they have many ways that we can counsel our patients to reduce risks of fire such as having working smoke detectors And not smoking in the house, but they have no meaningful advice to give to parents on how to reduce the risk of kids exposure to flame retardants Manufacturers are able to add halogenated flame retardants to their products without labeling nor proving they are safe for use I'm encouraged to see that electronic cases are included in this proposal Kids now play with smartphones and other electronics seemingly before they can walk Since halogenated flame retardants aren't chemically bound to the cases They can easily transfer to the children's hands and skin and into their bodies By banning the use of these flame retardants in cases we can limit this important exposure source This entire class of flame retardants all have a similar molecular structure and all are likely to react similarly in the human body Our next generation deserves to be able to grow up healthy and free of these toxic chemicals Let's not make the mistake of regrettable Substitutions and adopt the current proposal to restrict these unnecessary and health harming class of flame retardants. Thank you Thank you so much miss Curtis and Thank you for having me here today I'm Kathleen Curtis. I'm also a nurse. I'm the executive director of clean and healthy New York Which is a state-level group representing thousands of New Yorkers working for safer chemicals a sustainable economy in a healthier world I Coordinated the Alliance for Toxic Free Fire Safety for many years a national Alliance of groups concerned about flame retardant chemicals and I was a member for eight years on the New York State Task Force on flame retardant safety next slide So during that my time Working on state-level advocacy I worked to ban Penta and octa BDE and create the task force on which I subsequently served to explore availability of safer cost and performance effective alternatives to DECA BDE I also led the work to pass in the first in the nation ban on TCEP a carcinogenic Chlorinated tris in New York State. New York was the first to take action on that chemical and Subsequent expansion of that law the tris free children and babies acts to include TD CPP That was in 2011 and 2014. I coordinated the Alliance for Toxic Free Fire Safety and during that time I helped shepherd federal DECA BDE phase out significant market shifts away from these flame retardant chemicals and several state-level bans and I was one of the two advocates with the New York State Professional Firefighters Association that served on the task force on flame retardant safety next slide and States have taken many actions on flame retardant chemicals since 2004 12 states have passed 29 chemical specific product specific flame retardant Bans Not comprehensive. They're specific chemicals specific product sectors It's what worth noting that each passed with firefighter support and despite rabid chemical industry opposition so it They did not enter into these bans lightly in other words that was you know Well considered by the states that took action and it seems to be growing a momentum. That's growing next slide In now in 2015 14 bills were introduced in 10 states in just one year alone to address the hazards of these chemicals And it's likely that in 2016 more policies will be introduced and some of them will pass and become law Next slide But you know state actions only go so far and that's why of course we are urging the federal government to take action on this class in these products Only specific consumer products upholstered furniture children's products for age three and under Still a whole lot that would be covered with like electronics for example with this Action this petition and some of the states have acted several times Because chemicals get replaced with another harmful chemical and then that one has to be phased out Tdcbp was a replacement for TCEP which was a replacement for penta in upholstered furniture So we could do this forever You know there's 80,000 chemicals in commerce and really I mean in many respects the chemical industry is just sort of laughing at us and going Yeah, I have your cute little one chemical ban because we're just going to go right to the next chemical We're just going to go and tweak the molecule ever so slightly and we're back in business and it's less well tested and Not regulated at all So the replacement chemicals are much less tested as I said So we're on a toxic treadmill with no end-in-sight and the CPSC could fix this inadequate chemical by chemical approach next slide During that process of that year those years around 20 2004 2005 when a number of states were passing these PPD Bands they many of them set up task forces to examine DECA, which was the most widely used of those three PPD chemicals and What's what's different about New York State's department? Task Force was that it was a stakeholder process so the chemical industry was represented on the panel And that's why our task force report took eight years as opposed to the one or two years that the other government solely government representative task forces took because they argued every every dotted I and cross T and Deferred and delayed until in fact DECA was phased out by the EPA domestic production next slide so all of the thank you all of the Task Force findings were that in fact there were safer Cost and performance effective alternatives to DECA. They all found the same thing next slide Now it there is proof that The use of flame retardants does continue in the product sectors that this petition works to address self-reporting by SOFA mattress and carpet patting manufacturers shows that Yes, there are still they're so using and adding kept the additive flame retardants and I'm going to skip nine and ten and Just go to 11 the Washington State use reporting is shows that these chemicals are 217 times 17 times in Three and a half years flame retardant chemical use and children's products was reported Self-reporting by the companies that are adding them to their products and baby cars Car seats booster seats soft toys baby swings etc. Next slide miss Curtis your time has expired I'm going to extend an additional 30 seconds. Thank you so much So my conclusions are that state actions to ban certain flame retardants while important are not enough to avoid Exposure and protect public health. We need your help State Task Force reports clearly show there are alternatives to halogens that are affordable available and effective and Additive flame retardants are still bearing reported in upholstered furniture mattresses Infinite toddler products and electronics the four categories covered under the petition request So for these reasons and those stated by other supporters today clean and healthy New York strongly supports prohibiting the sale of products that Contain halogenated flame retardant chemicals. Thank you very much. Mr. Gerhardt Thank you. My name is Jeff Gerhardt. I'm the research director at the ecology Center. I'd like to thank the Commission for considering this petition on rulemaking on organo halogen flame retardants the ecology Center is a 45 year old Regional environmental organization with offices in Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan In addition to our core environmental work We've worked for decades to reduce worker exposures to chemical hazards and improve occupational health and safety for manufacturing workers Organizations staff are members of UAW local 138 in region 1a in southeast Michigan For the last eight years. We've conducted extensive consumer product research We've actually tested over 15,000 products in the small lab that we actually operate as part of our organization This work has identified a range of chemical hazards including organo halogenated flame retardants in a wide range of products Including toys children's products consumer electronics Vehicles jewelry outdoor products and even pet products a number of those categories are subject to this petition Many of the chemical hazards we have identified as was discussed earlier are actually semi volatile chemicals Additive chemicals which are released from products throughout their life cycle Including importantly both the production phase the use phase and the end of life phase including disposal and recycling of these products So today I want to highlight two important issues for you in my testimony that I don't think have been covered yet First I wanted to give an illustrative example of how product manufacturers are actually Currently moving away from organo halogen flame retardants and this really echoes Tim Riley's testimony from the previous session on the availability of non Halogenated flame retardants in the marketplace right now. We have solutions that are on the shelf that are ready to go. This can be done Second I want to summarize some of our more current research which is increasingly showing that organo halogenated flame retardants Contained in post-consumer plastics particularly from electronics and electronic casings are being recycled into new products and reintroducing these hazards to the economy In terms of manufacturing practices I have personally engaged with manufacturers of all different sizes ranging from large Michigan companies like Ford and steel case to many smaller Children product manufacturers and we've had dialogues with them about green engineering approaches to design How do we design out the need for using these flame retardants in our experience and for the reasons cited in this petition? We see many leading manufacturers are already moving to eliminate organo halogenated flame retardants I just want to offer one company as an example because we've published their story already Bytex is a company which produces strollers and children's car seats and while car seats are not directly subject to this petition I think their story is nonetheless illustrative of the types of changes in product design that we're seeing In response to the environmental health and consumer concerns the company has steadily worked to improve The hazard profile of the materials used in their car seats and has become an industry leader How have they done this two things one material substitution? Car seats have expanded polystyrene foam in them for shock absorption It's probably a polystyrene foam has the flame retardant HBCD in it They've switched from a polystyrene foam to expanded polypropylene foam and eliminated the need to have the HBCD foam Flame retardant in the product the other thing they've done is a chemical restriction with their suppliers They as of January 1 to 2013 Rotex has required all of its suppliers to eliminate chemical flame retardants containing bromine chlorine and other halogens from all components That are in their car seats and other products And this still is ensuring they can meet flammability standards to which car seats are still subject to So this is just a brief example showing what's going on in the marketplace Second point I want to highlight is the increase in presence of the organic halogen flame retardants in recycled plastic feedstock This is an avoidable reintroduction of flame retardants to the marketplace Which can be addressed through restrictions on organic halogen flame retardants through like you're considering today and through better supply chain management we have a extensive paper that summarizes a set of data we have on over 1500 consumer products from 2012 to 2014 and looks at flame retardant trends in those that I can submit to the committee I know I know I'm a little short on time. So I think I'll skip that part of this but The other item I do want to mention because I think there was some discussion of phthalates in the previous panel and and we've been very active on the phthalate issue as well and have been engaging with top retailers of flooring home depot lows lumber liquidators flooring to core and many others and I would just make one point in that as we talked to them about eliminating phthalates from their flooring Their approach was to approach this as eliminating ortho phthalates not eliminating the CPSC list of phthalates But they have really taken an approach to look at phthalates as a group of chemicals. Mr. Gerhardt your time's expired. I'm going to grant you an additional 30 seconds seconds. Thank you So I think the phthalate example is interesting to talk maybe a little more about So to conclude my experience is that innovative manufacturers are ready-enabled and willing to eliminate the use of organo halogen flame retardants However, CPSC leadership is critical to provide a uniform level clear playing field that can impact the entire marketplace I thank you for your time and look forward to answering any questions. Thank you so much Mr. McGannon Thank you. My name is Brian McGannon. I'm the policy director for the American Sustainable Business Council Thank you for the opportunity today to present in support of the petition The American Sustainable Business Council advocates for policy that supports a more sustainable economy The council spans a growing network of businesses and business associations across the United States Which in turn represents over 200,000 businesses and 325,000 Business executives owners investors and others of the many issues that create a sustainable economy Toxic chemical reform is and has been a top priority for our organization We've been active at the federal and state act advocacy in this space and have mobilized businesses through our companies for safer chemicals project The focus of my comments will be that the business community supports this petition and restricting halogenated flame retardants And our the companies are demonstrating that businesses can succeed if not thrive without using these toxic chemicals Let me start with some broad perspective ASBC commissioned the national scientific polling of small business owners Some of this key findings include 73% of small business owners support government regulation to ensure that products companies buy and sell are non-toxic 94% of those surveyed agreed that companies using chemicals of concern to human health Should disclose their presence to customers into the public So there is a clear concern in the small business community about toxics and products And that they are by and large supportive of government regulation to restrict the risks posed by these chemicals To put it in more practical context. I'd like to share With you some examples of how some of the ASBC members are succeeding without using toxic flame retardants Ohio based nature pedic manufacturers crib mattresses without chemical flame retardants When that nature pedic produces a mattress the company ensures it meets all safety standards Such as proper firmness and fit and provides fire protection and waterproofing through research and exploration The company found it could meet its goals using food grade polyethylene because of its lower flammability Properties polyethylene foam through design and engineering allows their mattress to pass flammability tests without using flame retardants Consumer demand for the company's products have led to rapid growth of the company whose products are now found in hundreds of stores nationwide New Jersey based hack and sack University Medical Center is a leader in the growing hospital community Who are in their words detoxing health care a key component of this strategy is to ensure that all materials and products brought into the medical Center have been screened for the for the use of hazardous chemicals that pose a threat to the health of patient staff in the community environment to that end Last year they stopped purchasing furniture treated with toxic flame of flame retardants Besides the health aspects of this move benefits of this approach include reduced disposal cost and reduced liability And last California based futon shop state that their fastest growing product segment in their 12 stores is their natural fiber flame retardant free mattresses So in summary informed consumers are changing the marketplace and businesses are innovating to meet the demand for cleaner and safer products Institutional purchasing decisions are also helping change the marketplace Businesses support restricting the flame retardants that we're talking about today and already are Succeeding without their use voluntarily, but this petition would help that for the entire marketplace Thank you so much and sorry to make everybody talk so quickly you've all done a marvelous job, and it's extremely impressive Ms. Wine-Trob, I'm just going to make a quick observation at least from my perspective, and I'm only speaking for myself When I look at the Federal Hazardous Substances Act I don't see any legal impediments to a broad approach a categorical approach But the big issue is not going to be the legal issue It's going to be the scientific issue and that's one that I'm so delighted to have all of the testimony here about but what I wanted specifically to ask you about is one of the petitioning groups is First of all you limited your petition to four product categories Is that telling us that those are the only four product categories that we should worry about with respect to these organo halogens? Not necessarily I think we thought about our scope very carefully so that it would be as narrowly tailored as possible In contrast to what ACC is saying about the petition So I think we thought about the categories that are best supported by the evidence that we know of both in terms of use as well as exposure and I would note that the Commission Independently will have to assess the scope of it should we grant the petition We always have the option of expanding the scope or narrowing the scope so but that's very helpful I guess the other question I would ask and I'd realize you're a lawyer not a scientist But I still wanted to ask that and that is We've heard testimony about the need for FR chemicals at least some of these products, and I guess as a starting point Do we need These organo halogens in any of the four product categories? Or to put it another way are any of the four product categories that are included the types of products that need FR chemicals at all and if so, can you tell me which ones absolutely would need some kind of an FR chemical? First I want to say that as a consumer organization that works on many issues We are very concerned also about fire safety as well as consumer safety So this is an issue that has been of great discussion in our organization And is there a balancing of these risks to consumers? I would say that for our view of the data is that it's unclear why Fire does have been decreasing. It's a good thing But we don't know why and there's not clear evidence pointing to one particular reason my hunch is there are many reasons why But Because of that Our view is that given Two sets of hazards and the fact that there are other ways to fight against fires You know, there are barrier methods There are other things and there are there are flame retardants that don't fall under the scope So we think that there are other other ways and other things that can be done That would not necessitate the use of this class of chemicals in this in these four classes of products Well, thank you so much miss Huffling you raised an interesting point namely you said a lot of your patients Don't know which products are safe and which don't so of course they come and ask you So I guess one question would be that in order to ban a product we have to determine that labeling would be insufficient I guess my question would be would it would you be satisfied if we were just to require labeling for Organo halogens the problem I see is that if you tell me about a hazard, but I can't get away from it I'm not sure how helpful that is but I'd be interested to hear what your take is on that Well, I think just from what we've heard from other panelists today I think with the health risks that are apparent with these flame retardants. I don't think labeling would would be enough You know, I'd prefer to prevent disease and prevention would be that they're not available We've also seen with other products that when you have some of these more Toxic ingredients that those might be the ones that you find at like the dollar stores or some of these places where our lower income Patients are going to be shopping and it I think it's really unfair that they're the ones that already are facing burdens of disease From other areas of their lives that they would be the ones most impacted and I'd be very concerned that that could happen in this case And just one quick question miss Curtis Most states don't like the feds Regulating because when we regulate we preempt state Inconsistent state regulations But this is one of those instances where you are actually looking to have the federal government take action rather than to have the states do it And why is it you would suppose that we're better situated to do it than the states? Well, I first don't necessarily Think that in every instance the states would need to be preempted I wasn't saying you were making that you know the and or you could co-enforce would be another option But um, you know, we do care about kids in Wyoming and Indiana and places where potentially there would never be a Law passed so rather than you know limiting Protections to the states that are able to lift that kind of legislation We would want to protect children everywhere not to mention workers in other countries where most of the products come from and of course Disposal communities which are often communities of color and a low-income as well. So thank you so much my time's expired Commissioner Robinson Thank you, and thank you all for coming here today. It's really important to all of us that you're here Mr. Gearhart, let me just say that the ecology Center. I love that. It's in my home state of Michigan Not only are we our center of industry one of those beautiful states in the nation. So it's excellent So I would I'd like to ask just quickly of both you and mr. McGannon and let me just say how heartened I am to hear about the conscientious business effort to take toxic chemicals out of Products, but do you think that if we were to grant this ban that it might spur innovation? I think the the Approach that as Environmental health advocates that we've already taken to focus on Halogens as a group of chemicals that we're talking with industry and manufacturers to getting out has already done that I mean we are spurring innovation You know the previous session talking about these new Chemistry's that are being developed these new green engineering approaches that are being developed to deal with Strigent product standards, but doing it in a way that's healthier and safer. So so Yes, it would help spur innovation It would help reinforce the message that companies are hearing from the public health community that they're hearing from states And that they're hearing from people around the world on this issue I'll add to that that yes, I think the these would spur innovation that that you know in many ways Government regulation acts as a signal to both investors and innovators who see that there will be a market a potential market for a safer alternative So, you know, it'll tell investors. Hey, this might be a safer play or it at least gives them some guideposts that hey This is where we can you know our money will do the best work Thank you, this wine tribe. You're the only petitioner on the panel So I'm going to turn to you and you brought up the EPA quickly at the end of your testimony We've been told today as you know that This work that we are talking about doing would be redundant because of what the EPA is doing and To use the words of one of the other witnesses These substances that are under the petition they say have been and are being reviewed by the EPA and they talk About what 83 substances 70 fire retardants 50 fire retardants that have been found safe Is that true when we're dealing with the specific substances that are under this petition? That is not true Okay, do we know of any that specifically fall into this petition that the EPA has found to be safe? I don't believe so. No, okay, and could you just speak briefly? Because I we pointed out a little earlier that the EPA obviously is under one statute and they're dealing with industrial compounds And we're dealing with consumer products under the FHSA. Could you just speak briefly to what what what you would expect? What how this petition falls under our mandate under the shore? I mean, I think also there's a huge effort to reform TASCA that for the past 40 years I think there's pretty broad consensus that it hasn't been working And I think this petition is a reflection that we need the CPSC with their Clear authority under the FHSA with their expertise both in toxicology as well as in product safety to use their authority To take action when these chemicals are used in these four classes of consumer products And when we're talking about the the FHSA I know says that we can declare our substance to be hazardous Which is toxic if it's causes substantial personal injury. Could you just talk a bit about how? What you're asking us to do under the petition would fall under the FHSA sure well under the FHSA The trigger as you said is was what is toxic and what is the hazard substances linked to what is toxic and the act? Is not very specific. It does not say what the risk is is does not say a number It does not talk about severity necessarily and courts have actually Deferred to the CPSC in their interpretation. It could also be a capacity of harm So it doesn't need to be a harm that has already been illustrated So it is actually a broad term that courts have deferred to the CPSC to interpret the statute And again, that's under the May cause substantial exactly. Okay. Thank you. I've done it for the commissioner Burkle Thank You mr. Chair First of all, I'm a nurse too and I'm from New York We may be related Thank you all very much for being here and for providing your testimony I am very encouraged that without government regulation without any Heavy hand of the federal government that there has been this much innovation and creativity among the manufacturers. That's good news That's that's and I think as we wait raise awareness that I'll only continue. So thank you for that testimony Rachel, I just wanted to go back to I should say Ms. Weindra. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm from New York, too I just want to Go back to Commissioner Robinson's questions with regards to the EPA because that issue came up this morning They the panel before you and I think it was ACC the two Panelists from ACC mentioned that although there was a list of chemicals that had EPA had come up with they didn't see it now you're you testified to Commissioner Robinson that you didn't think these FRRs were in that list or covered by that list, but I'm so I'm asking you have you seen that list I have not seen the list and I am also not an EPA expert There are others who will be testifying who are vastly more expert that I am I have not seen the list of my understanding Is we don't know necessarily which if our chemicals are included and which are not included So it may be that some are it may be some or not But you can't really say that it's redundant when we don't know what the scope of it and what the specific ingredients chemical Structures are good, and I think that's consistent with our this morning's Panel that you know, we really do need to see what is included in that list of chemicals I do want to ask because you were a petitioner Do you have data to share on the what you have in the petition to support the petition I think That's a broad question We we did provide a lot of scientific data Certainly, I've filed numerous petitions before the agency this petition had more data than any other petition that I've ever I also We believe that we did and in what you filed Did you see any gap between the animal and the human studies? Is there a gap is that of concern and not being a scientist? I would say there are other people Who are better able to answer that specific scientific question? Thank you. Thanks very much Miss Curtis, I want to go to your slide presentation And I believe it's the second to last slide that says Washington State Reporting and the first bullet that's there It says Washington State Children's Safe Product requires reporting The Safe Products Act requires a reporting list of 67 toxic chemicals and children's products several of which are flame retardants This kind of goes back to EPA although we may have firsthand knowledge of what is included in that list Which are FR's which are not do you have that information about what? Okay, that would be real helpful Okay, if you could provide us with that list that would be real helpful Thank you very much, and then mr. Gearhart you referred to a study and if you I think you've mentioned you were going to but I just would ask for that for the record If you could provide that to us, that would be extremely helpful. Yeah, we'll do that. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chair Commissioner Mohorovic, thank you mr. Chairman and thanks to all the panelists for their testimony and for the petition and Miss wine Trob, I'm going to continue some of my Exploration of the demand drivers for the incorporation of flame retardant chemicals in certain product sectors If I could ask you to think about the electrical sectors, which I think we heard from testimony or general references to this to UL94 does has CFA or will CFA engage in the voluntary standards arena to encourage UL to withdraw this small open flame requirement in 94 which is seems to be driving a lot of the Flame retardants and to pass that particular aspect in electronics generally. It's a good question I'm not sure it's something that I actually have thought about and have discussed, but I'm not sure If we're going to be active, right? Do you believe that the CPSC should be active in that way to encourage UL to reconsider or withdraw that aspect of the Performance requirement of UL94. I mean, I think UL would benefit from your expertise certainly, okay? And how about on TB 117-13? Do you believe the CPSC should adopt it as a national standard for a posted furniture? Likely, yes. I'd like to do some more research before I commit wholeheartedly, but substantively I think it likely would be a very positive move forward. Thank you very much and mr. Gerhardt you identified a number of product categories And I don't think you're trying to be exclusive in your category But I noticed you did not mention mattresses and the finding of any flame retardants that are Identified in the petition as being found in any mattresses and that of course is one of the product categories identified Have you found the existence of any in mattresses? Our study sample set doesn't include a lot of mattresses I think there's other studies that are referenced in the in the petition and that we've talked about so it's mostly other Categories of consumer thank you. Mrs. Curtis is jumping out of her seat and I was going there I was going there too Kathleen. Don't worry now the the International Sleep Products Association Has provided written comments. I don't know if you saw that but that's the the Association that represents American manufacturers and and they cite that they are unaware of any US manufacturers that use Organo-Hellogen flame retardants to meet the requirements of 16 CFR parts 1632 and 1633 of course our CPSC flammability standards on open flame and smoldering Now they said American so it doesn't necessarily mean there couldn't have been imports But I noticed in your testimony you identified and this is this is again consistent with me looking at the demand drivers and mattresses so that's why your testimony identifying for for four manufacturers that That that that you found to have flame retardants in them. Can you explain the testing they? Not testing. This is a market survey. We asked them how do you achieve these flammability standards and what do you use? We asked them a series of questions, which I can provide for the commissioners and Yes, five reported being kept flame retardant chemical free four reported flame retardants in foam One disclosed avoiding specific flame retardants But wouldn't assert that they were flame retardant free and one had two brands that were flame retardant free and two brands that were not flame retardant free and this is sort of flew in the face of our conventional wisdom that we had thought in my ten years ago that They had gone to these Kevlar sort of barrier various technologies and had stopped using flame retardants so that was interesting and new information for advocates and Yeah, so have you had any follow-up from those four that self-reported in some way And how did they how did they self-report? Was this a survey that was sent back in they sent back MSDS sheets or BOM sheets to be able to identify Bill of materials or other varied these are by the way the top 14 domestic Matches makers, okay, so it doesn't capture the entire universe, but you know the biggest ones so together They do represent a very significant portion. Are you at liberty to identify the four? Right this minute Sure. Can you come back to me? Sure. Maybe I could offer those in QFRs. Do any of the four Subsequently, have they provided any follow-up to refute that or perhaps that? No, this is their self-reporting What we the market survey was designed to determine what the average person could find out not somebody That's very understood as a right to no perspective. You wanted to buy a mattress. You heard about this flame retardant stuff. You're like gee See Lee do you use? Temporopedic whatever right and so if you call their customer service, what could you find out if you call if you went on their website What could you find out or if you did a Google search like what had their statements had those companies made? But then we followed up with by sending them a subsequent letter and saying here's what our market research showed Is it please feel free to refine or or confirm or deny that and so no responses to that Well, we got we did get responses, but there were a percentage that did not respond Thank you very much. I appreciate it time has expired. I want to thank all the members of the panel again for speaking so quickly and speaking So thoughtfully We're going to take a ten minute break which by my watch takes us to 224 so we're to panel six and this is the last panel of the day and We have Four speakers who are here and two speakers who will be with us by telephone The speakers who are here dr. Vito Babroskis and welcome to him. I've seen him before Dr. Don Lucas from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Dr. Jennifer sass from National Resources Defense Council mr. Daniel Rosenberg from NRDC as well and Dr. Holly Davies Washington State Department of Ecology and I Left out dr. Venus Singla who is also here on by way of phone dr. Babroskis. Would you please? Present your testimony. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I'm Vito Braskas. I'm an independent fire safety scientist But I also like to see myself as a responsible citizen of planet Earth And so that is the context of my comments next please So just a little bit of preliminary note I think you already heard this that our flame retardants effective or not effective It depends on the ratio of FR chemical to the volume of flames that are present that's what all the literature shows and That is often the reason why you get fooled with testing results because there will be a test result Bunsen burner type test show glorious outcome. There'll be real life Scenario and that will be seen to be ineffectual That's been a special concern for those of us involved with the upholstered furniture issue Because the state of California and the prior standard had been testing the foams with a tiny flame in their test Whereas that's not the real-life situation The only reason why foam would get ignited is because of a burning fabric and when a fabric ignites and burns You get big flames and not small flames next so are there any benefits to putting flame retardants specifically of the Organo halogen type that we heard about earlier into these categories of products next please and Of course smoldering and Flaming and we talked a great deal on the my prior presentation at CPSC on a posted furniture I talked a great deal about the the issues there next Now the what we can see is that Smoldering for specifically for furniture while it is reduced greatly still remains a significant problem Flaming ignitions I would describe as being a date at a de minimis Situation that yes, they do occur. They are tragic, but it is doubtful that Effective strategies can be mounted to Overcome that next We were I think we're ready cover that well enough next Now this is something where the hopefully the commissioners will be apprising themselves of that there's the industry has made a great deal of Advertising material based on inappropriate and misleading interpretations of a study that I was a leader author of whilst I worked at NIST in 1988 and I ran tests which essentially replicated earlier tests at Hill and Brandon Ray Ran for NASA of NASA type configurations and indeed when you do that You can see some very interesting outcomes and you see an extreme peg stop situation of what can happen However, that is not ever going to be a scenario that plays out in your living room You will not be reading an FR version of the Sunday, New York Times While wearing your FR slippers in your FR pajamas that is just not Going to happen. So the a density of the foam was different the FR content was much higher, etc. Next The when I had earlier tested the furniture with consumer amounts of Retardance loan behold. We saw that there's absolutely Totally ineffective situation and that was well documented the industry does not like me to bring that up next next the risk of ignition of external candles or other such devices into casings of electronics is Minimal despite these very nice Fires that dr. Blaze showed and that I had an opportunity to do in my own career Yes, I can make very nice fire statistics or not bear out that that is relevant way of testing next place Statistics in fact show that there is not a problem in Europe where they don't use these compared to America next Same way in deaths as opposed to fire incidents next No benefit in children's Products obviously for pretty obvious reasons next Now this is something again people don't like to show but I'm one of the few people who has published this particular Graph you can see a 100 year track record You can see a steady decline the industry has been telling you things that oh well since we introduced these flame returns in the 1950s that you have had a Some beneficial effect. I do not believe that is at all the case I do believe that there's one overriding reason that explains that graph and that is the increasing Level literacy and education. I believe that better explains than anything else why we have had a monotonic decrease in that curve next and Same way in California the California did not achieve a Superabundant decrease compared to the rest of America when they introduced their 1975 regulation next So I support what the conclusions that you've seen before and I point out that You got to be very careful about men's scale laboratory tests because they're likely to mislead you rather than help you next You know your time has expired. I'm going to grant you an additional 30 seconds And I'm going to use the 30 seconds to thank the chairman and the commissioners Thank you. Dr. Lucas Thank you. My name is Donald Lucas I'm a combustion researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory University, California, Berkeley I specialize in toxic combustion byproducts. I was a deputy director of the Environment Health and Safety Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory I'm also on the advisory committee for the California Bureau that issued TB 117 2013 Next slide So the science of chemistry in question of why we're grouping some of these chemicals together So I was going to bring my organic Ganon chemistry textbook, which is exactly how we group things together But the weight of it was going to exceed my limit for carrying on the airplane But if you look at it, you'll see that one of the reasons why we group chemicals together is because of their functional groups and their backbone in the case of the Oregon gall halogens that we're talking about it's the backbone is the same and the Functional groups are the same and that's why they do belong together next For example, the all the non-polymeric organo halogens are semi-volatile have an environmental persistence Preferred partitioning and fats potentially increase chemical reactivity having to do toxicity They produce halogen atoms at high temperatures and that they all produce impurities and combustion byproducts and dioxin furans when they are burned and again fire returns do not make things flame proof They just can change the the properties, but they will burn I do want to point out one of the questions came up earlier about TV PA Not being part of this class because of the toxicity and I was informed that Dr. Linda Bernbaum has been doing research recently on this and I hope the Commission has some of the recent results And if not, we'll be sure to get them to you next slide so one of the questions is about the When these compounds burn what happens and so when you burn an organo halogen you can Increase the toxicity increase the amount of smoke increase the amount of nanoparticles that are formed It's an emerging area of fire safety and combustion research And in addition to gases like HCL, so we know that's the case What is interesting is when I talked to some of my colleagues at Louisiana State University who are World experts in the formation of doxins and furans They don't know anything about fire returns by Tobu when I was doing and I showed them the chemical structures of the organo halogen flame returns They were being they were extremely surprised that these were being used as flame retardants because what they said is these are great Precursors to form more toxic products. I also do want to mention one thing about Environmental persistence and we talked about that as being one of the similarities of of these organo halogens So now we're talking about consumer products that are in use now Or that we've been produced in the last 20 or 30 years with these chemicals in there that are being produced now But the fact that these compounds can last for generations and when we throw them away if we put them in a landfill We're now passing on a problem. They will eventually break down We're not even sure the mechanism of the breakdown or the breakdown products And then we suspect that in many cases these are going to be toxic products So one of the things we have to worry about I would hope the commission does is not just worry about the exposure to consumer products now But what about the exposure that's going to be generations down the line from these products? next slide The organo halogens as veto mentioned it the testing is very difficult to Duplicate real fires. They're very complex You try to design the test one of the reasons is to make it easy to do in the laboratory So you can do it in a repeatable way, but it doesn't cover every single fire scenario So I think that it's as veto mentioned It's very hard to go from a fire test to real fire data And I wish the fire data had the same scrutiny as does the toxicity data You know, you'll have hundreds of studies on toxicity and everyone's arguing about the effect How big it is yet the fire data seems to be taken for granted as being the truth And I think there's a lot of work I know the IFF is working on that and looking at some of the issues Involved the reporting of the fires and what's going on. We heard Dr. Blaze say that the fire retardants added to prevent fires from small flames They're not the big one. So when you have a big fire, things are going to burn. What about small fires? Well, here's a picture of a sofa in the UK from Dr. Richard Hall and What the ignition source here is four sheets of newspaper and I should point out that in the UK the fire standards are even Greater than in California and they have this photo sofa has more fire retardants and it then the sofa is typical in the US So with four sheets of newspaper lit by a match the entire sofa in the room was consumed So I don't know if you consider that a big fire or small fire But the idea that a it only prevents big fires or big fires are gonna burn anything But small fires will be prevented by the F ours. I don't think it's true next so my Conclusions are that the inherent properties of these organic Organic flame retardants do do pose human health hazards. They failed to offer meaningful fire protection But they can increase fire toxicity and that Regulating them as a class makes scientific sense. Thank you. Thank you very much. Dr. Sass Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to be here And present these comments supporting the petition by earth justice and the petitioners Asking to declare that the certain products are banned hazardous if they contain non Polymeric additive organo halogen flame retardants. I'm a senior scientist at NRDC the Natural Resources Defense Council I've been with them for 15 years and I've worked on toxic materials and federal regulation that whole time I'm also a professorial lecturer at George Washington University in the School of Public Health In addition like most of you I'm also a parent and a consumer And I have a dusty home and I come to you as someone in all of those roles today I've carefully reviewed the excellent scientific statements by the petitioners and supporters in the petition and the policy implications of the petition I'm very alarmed actually when I read through it by the overwhelming evidence For some members of the organo halogen class of chemicals to have adverse effects on systems that are critical to normal human development and function The my full statement has more details and of course the petition has more details But many of these studies over the last 10 years are very Disturbing rather than wait for an overabundance of proof of harm before taking action For all of the other non polymeric additive organo halogen flame retardants CPSC should act on the petition to address all of the chemicals in this class at once What level of proof should be required to address the chemicals for which little or no hazard? Information is available. It should be the level that supports regulatory decisions that prevents harm For the class of organo halogen flame retardants the work of dr. Eastman and colleagues which is attached to the petition demonstrates that there are sufficient data either by individual chemical testing or by applying standard read across Techniques to show that the whole class is hazardous and may cause substantial personal injury or illness His laboratory screened about 90 organo halogen flame retardants about 85 of which were non polymeric The team used standard search strategies to identify publicly available toxicity data on all chemicals including published studies government databases industry data submissions and Echo the European chemical assessment regulations. These are the same and others These are the same kind of standard literature searches are done by US EPA health Canada and the European regulatory agencies Using these same databases and the information is considered reliable For cases where information was lacking his team used standard QSAR quantitative structure activity relationship models that are also publicly available in the OECD toolbox the QSAR toolbox which is online The toolbox is specifically designed to serve this gap filling Function and is used by state and federal regulatory agencies industry Academic researchers and others that must conduct chemical hazard assessments of new and existing chemicals with incomplete data sets When using these tools at standard practice to group the chemicals according to their structure Substances with little or no data are grouped with those substances that share the same or similar structure And have more robust data sets His team did this Appropriately, it's very concerning that when he did do this He found that most of the organo halogen flame retardants still lacked enough basic Information to actually run them through a green screen, which is a standard hazard assessment screen used by EPA state regulators and others These are screening tools that are designed to use minimum data sets So with even less than that to go on for some cases He applied a standard screening tool Used by Washington State Department of Ecology called Q-CAP and what he found was that all of the non-polymeric Organo halogen flame retardants that were screened Were found to be either of high concern or Toxic based on the criteria as described above and the results of the screen showed that critical tox data were lacking For many of them and those for which data were available post significant hazards for people or the environment Given how little is known about these if CPSC fails to include all of these in a band Then it will be as if those chemicals that have not been tested or presumed to are presumed to be non-toxic And this is clearly wrong as Eastman's work shows The NRC and its science and decisions 2009 reports that agents that have not been examined sufficiently in epidemiologic or toxic logic studies Are insufficiently included in or even excluded from risk assessments? Oftentimes they were concerned about this that typically there's no description of the risk potentially posed by these agents and risk characterization so their Their risk or their toxicity ends up carrying no weight In the final decision-making and this is a problem that's addressed in this petition Thank you Excellent timing doctor says thank you. Mr. Rosenberg Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to present my testimony in support of the petition My name is Daniel Rosenberg. I'm a senior attorney in NRC's health and environment program We urge the Commission not to be dissuaded from granting the petition on the ground that action taken by EPA in the past present or future Pursuant to the Toxic Substances Control Act TOSCA is now or will be sufficient to render action by the Commission redundant TOSCA divides chemicals into two broad categories existing chemicals and new chemicals which are treated somewhat differently under the law However, the law does not give EPA adequate authority to properly evaluate and regulate either category of chemical Which is why TOSCA is widely recognized as the greatest failure of the major environmental and health laws passed in the 1970s Most chemical substances covered by TOSCA are considered to be existing chemicals meaning that they were available for use in commerce at the time TOSCA was enacted in 1976 these existing chemicals roughly 62,000 of them were grandfathered and were not required to meet any safety standard at that time The law makes it very difficult for EPA to require testing of these existing chemicals and as a result EPA Estimates that it has required full testing for only 200 to 300 of the 62,000 substances TOSCA also makes it very difficult for EPA to restrict the use of an existing chemical The burden of proof is on the EPA to demonstrate that the substances pose an unreasonable risk to human health or the Environment and that the proposed restriction is the least burdensome necessary to address the risk to date EPA has only successfully restricted the use of about a half dozen of the 62,000 chemicals that were grandfathered as the commissioners likely know in 1989 EPA unsuccessfully tried to ban most uses of asbestos a known human carcinogen When a federal court ruled that EPA had not demonstrated that EPA had that the agency excuse me had adopted the least burdensome regulation necessary That court decision was in 1991 and EPA has not yet attempted to restrict the use of another existing chemical Beyond the roughly 62,000 chemicals grandfathered as existing another roughly 22,000 substances have entered the market via the new chemicals program of TOSCA EPA's new chemicals program should not be assumed to have effectively prevented unsafe chemicals Including flame retardant ingredients from reaching the market TOSCA limits the type of information that EPA can require upfront as part of a pre-manufacturing notice or PMN as a result EPA Estimates that nearly 70% of all chemical applications EPA receives the PMNs contain no data on health or environmental effects Well, EPA has some procedural mechanisms to hold up approval of a new chemical until a consent agreement is reached to require additional Testing they are infrequently they're used infrequently by EPA And even with the met the methods EPA has developed to screen new chemicals in the absence of a basic set of data for new chemicals problematic new chemicals do slip through the cracks EPA estimates that it receives substantial risk reports from industry on about 30 chemicals each year that previously went through the new chemicals program And this likely underestimates the problem It is these structural problems with the new chemicals program under TOSCA that contributed to the GAO government accountability office's placement of EPA's chemical program on its list of government programs at high risk for failure in 2009 that it's still on that list six years later and led the EPA inspector general to conclude in 2010 that claims about the new chemicals program Ensuring the public is protected from unreasonable risk are quote not supported by data or actual testing In short assurances from stakeholders interested in avoiding regulation or restriction of their products that the TOSCA program is Taking care of any safety concerns and that there is no reason for CPSC to act should be ignored by the Commission Nor how am I doing on time? Two minutes nor should the Commission refrain from acting based upon the potential for revision to TOSCA by revisions to TOSCA by Congress and the first place adoption of TOSCA reform legislation is not a certainty and the Commission should not Should not delay action to protect the public based on the possibility that Congress might take care of the problem by legislating changes to TOSCA Second even if TOSCA legislation is at some point enacted It will not quickly address and may never address the concerns that are at the heart of the petition There's no guarantee that a revised TOSCA even when the revised program is up and running Will ensure that EPA will be able to effectively and timely regulate articles or products containing either existing or new flame return chemicals or the chemicals themselves Based upon legislation that is currently under consideration in some respects EPA's ability to regulate products or articles as they're called in TOSCA Containing chemicals of concern could be made more difficult Including making it harder for EPA to require notice of potential new uses of chemicals of concern in imported products Ultimately whether or not TOSCA is reauthorized and whatever EPA does or does not do in the coming years The Commission has a mission and authority independent of and not subsidiary to that of EPA under TOSCA The existence of TOSCA is not a reason or justification for the Commission to decline to use its own authority To protect the public from products containing these dangerous chemicals as outlined in the petition The Commission should proceed with granting the petitioner's request and implementing the asked for ban to protect the public Thank you again very much for the opportunity to testify today. Thank you very much. Dr. Singla. Can you hear us? Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me? I'm about to ask the audience. Can you hear Dr. Singla? Yes, the answer is please proceed Thank you very much for the opportunity to comment today. I'm a staff scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council Next slide I'm sure that you all know about the story of the scorpion and the frog So the frog gives the scorpion a ride across the river and the scorpion stings the frog Dooming them both when asked why the scorpion replies? Well, it's in my nature And I'm telling this story because it illustrates an important principle for our discussion That like the scorpion chemicals behave the way they do because it's in their nature That is the chemicals fundamental properties are dictated by its very makeup And what I'm going to talk about is that for the additive non-polymeric Organo-hologin flame retardant used in certain consumer products It's in their nature as a class to present risks to human health Next slide as Dr. Lucas mentioned When considering whether chemicals can be grouped together as a class There are four key criteria to look at the structural similarity the physical and chemical properties environmental fate characteristics and toxicity Next slide So one way to evaluate structural similarity is to look for a common functional group as But Dr. Lucas also mentioned Next slide So what we're looking at here is the group of acid chlorides that EPA's new chemical program Uses based on the functional group that circled there in red And the R in this picture stands for the rest of the chemical structure And the rest doesn't matter here because it's the part that circled in red that gives rise to the chemical properties of concern Next slide So All of the chemicals that are now shown on this slide are part of EPA's acid chloride group next slide Even though these chemicals are all structurally distinct and do look very different They all have the same functional group circled there in red And thus they fall into the same class for evaluation Next slide So just like the class of acid chlorides shares a functional group So do the organohalogen flame retardant? In this case the functional group is the organohalogen linkage. That's the carbon bonded to chlorine or bromine that circled in red Next slide So stemming from this organohalogen nature are two important shared physical chemical properties The boiling points that make these chemicals semi-volatile organic compounds and hydrophobicity meaning that they don't mix with water very well On the other hand fatty things are what they love to mix with so they're lipophilic or fat loving next slide Now because they're semi-volatile organic compounds these flame retardants can exist in both a solid and gas state at typical room temperatures They continuously transition from the solid to the gas state and migrate out of product Now because they're hydrophobic the chemicals attached to particles in the air that are also hydrophobic They're attracted to that light nature and then finally the contaminated particles settle into house dust next slide The flame retardants can enter our bodies when we breathe in touch contaminated dust surfaces or products And accidentally get the dust in our mouths when we're eating Next slide Now generally there are few natural processes that can break this carbon halogen linkage So that means the chemicals are persistent indoors and outdoors Indoor persistence means that once flame retardants migrate out of a product They stick around and people are continuously exposed to that contaminated air dust and surfaces Bio-accumulation also stems from the physical chemical property of hydrophobicity Because they're hydrophobic and fat loving organic halogen flame retardants partition from the environment into living tissues that contain fat Next slide the fat loving nature means that organic halogen flame retardants can easily cross into living cells That's because the protective outer layer of a cell the membrane is made of faster lipids Once they're inside cells the flame retardants resist breakdown and are not removed from cells The carbon halogen bond is a key feature that causes these molecules to evade the mechanism The abc transporters that were mentioned previously that normally block and remove foreign chemicals from cells And as dr. Sass mentioned dr. Eastman's assessment of over 80 Organo halogen flame retardants dr. Singlet all the compounds studied present human health hazard Dr. Singlet your time has expired, but you can have 30 more seconds if you wish Thank you. I will use those 30 seconds to thank the commission and say that Based on the structural similarity as the common functional group the shared physical chemical environmental fate and toxicity properties It's appropriate to group these flame retardants together as a class and PTSD rulemaking is needed to protect consumers Thank you so much. Dr. Davies. Are you there? Yes, can you hear me? Can everyone hear her? Yes Please proceed I'm dr. Davies from the washington state department of ecology, which is our state environmental agency And i'm here today in support of the petition My testimony will focus on information from washington state on flame retardants in consumer products Especially children's products and the availability of safe alternatives Our environmental monitoring has shown organo halogen flame retardants are widespread in washington's environment And we have one fish consumption advisory for pvds The washington state departments of ecology and health investigated flame retardants in our 2006 chemical action plan for pvds In 2007 following the recommendation in the pvde chemical action plan Washington passed a law restricting the use of pvds in certain products sold in washington state This was the first ban on deca bde and helped to inform a national agreement in 2009 between the manufacturers and epa to stop producing deca bde In 2008 washington passed the children's safe products act This requires manufacturers of children's products sold in washington to report if their product contains a chemical of high concern to children This reporting list contains five organo halogen flame retardants Deca bde tbbpa tcep tdcpp and hbcd As of august manufacturers have filed over 33,000 reports of a chemical in a product component and category Only 33 reports were for halogenated flame retardants with the function of flame retardant Most were at low levels indicating they were likely present as contaminants Only 11 reports indicated the chemical was used in the percent level 10 of these were for tbbpa and one of these reports was for deca bde in outdoor play structures at the percent level 118 reports noted that these five chemicals were present for functions other than flame retardant Including contaminants colorants or plasticizers only a small number were in the percent levels There were 13 reports of tbbpa in the percent levels used as a colorant I would like to note that we have not independently confirmed the presence of these flame retardants in these products And manufacturers may report different functions or higher levels without penalty The department has tested some consumer products for the presence of flame retardants to ensure compliance with our state laws We tested for flame retardants in general consumer and children's products Including seat cushions mattresses upholstery furniture electronics clothing and baby carriers Our product testing results indicate that manufacturers have moved away from pbde's and are using other Organo halogen flame retardants This supports treating organo halogen flame retardants as a group as manufacturers are substituting other organo halogen flame retardants The majority of samples that contained high levels of bromine did not contain pbde's above detection limits The presence of high bromine levels and low pbde concentrations Suggested alternative bromine flame retardants were likely used in the products Further testing identified fire master 550 and 600 which are commercial mixtures containing organo halogen flame retardants pdcpp was the most commonly identified chlorinated phosphate detected in foam Again indicating that alternative organo halogen flame retardants are being used TCEP, tcpp and v6 were also detected in foam mostly in foam TBVPA and hbcd were also detected in some samples of percent levels indicating their use as additive flame retardants Alternative assessments have identified safer alternatives to organo halogen flame retardants and the use is described in the petition Alternative assessments are specific to a particular use of a chemical and ensure that safer alternatives are identified Which prevents regrettable substitutions The 2007 Washington state ban on deca bde and residential upholstered furniture and electronic enclosures Went into effect after the departments of ecology and health Determined there are safer alternative for those uses. There are also several terms assessments by EPA's designs and environment program Ecology and health determine that chemical flame retardants are not necessary in upholstered furniture There are barrier fabrics or inherently flame resistant materials that meet fire safety standards for furniture The design for environment program at EPA identified safer chemical alternatives for flame retardants also used inflexible polyurethane foam and furniture Ecology and health identified a safer alternative to deca bde and electronic enclosures as did EPA's design for the environment EPA has also found safer alternatives for hbcd used an expandable polystyrene foam for insulation So in conclusion organo halogen flame retardants are a class of chemicals that are toxic to humans in the environment And are found in indoor and outdoor environments as well as in people in wildlife Additive organo halogen flame retardants are not needed in any of the uses mentioned in the petition Because safer chemical and non chemical alternatives exist for all the applications listed The washington state department of ecology Recommends that you initiate rulemaking under the federal hazardous substance act to declare these products with additive organo halogen flame retardants The band has a discussion with this Thank you And thank you very much Dr. Sass if you Would I'd like to ask you a question when I you were testifying I heard several words that I think could be taken out of context like we've got data gaps minimal data sets and You talked about how little is known And so the saving grace for all of this is something that you referred to as read across techniques And I was wondering if you could enlighten us in a second or two about how read across techniques can actually fill in the data gaps Sure. So for this group of chemicals For many of them we we do have the data and and like I say that there's references in the petition There's references in my comments. There's published papers stuff like that But for some we don't and we're asking you to look at the whole group So using standard techniques like read across means that you look at the structure of the chemical you compare It to other chemicals with the same or similar structure that we know a lot more about And there are standard methods and programs that help to do that in standardized ways And those tools are available publicly They're tools that are used by government BPA uses them governments use them state level academics And and the those some of those agreed upon tools were used in the work that was presented in the petition Okay, thank you very much Dr. Lucas you talked about the environmental persistence of these chemicals and it brought to mind what dr Balin was saying this morning is that if you're a manufacturer that's using fr chemicals you want them to be persistent Could you explain why that's so? I'm not sure what I didn't explain why they want them to be persistent Okay. Well, why would one want a chemical like that to be persistent? I assume if you're using a chemical deliberately, you don't want it to start reacting in the product that you're making But because they last such a long time, but if they don't last forever They will eventually break down in the lifetime of some of these compounds that we're talking about can be in the hundreds of thousands of years Um, and I guess the question I want to make sure that I'm clear about and that is dr. Babroskis I'm sure I'm mispronouncing that that's why I keep calling veto. Do I understand that you are saying that with respect to the organohalogens that are at subject here that are in the four product categories that they provide no Useful benefit whatsoever and that even if they were banned and they were there were no fr substitutes That the world would be a better place without them That's my assessment. Yes that both the testing of appropriate quantities of the materials and appropriate fire tests and all of our available statistical fire incident data Do not support the existence of benefits. So that's a conclusion you have to draw And I would ask is there any member of the panel including dr. Singler dr. Davies who would disagree with the statement that was just made Well, thank you very much. And I guess I would ask the panelists again of this notion of regrettable Substitutions could you explain why that is a dynamic here and why it is so important for this commission to pay attention to this this notion And I throw it up to anybody who cares to speak to it I'm happy to say a few words and I also know that dr. Singler has done a lot of work in this area as well The problem is the regrettable substitution is substituting one harmful chemical for another. It's it's Particularly of concern where we're substituting a chemical whose harm we know because it's better studied for a chemical who That is also harmful, but just simply isn't as well studied and so unfortunately sometimes the chemicals We don't look at them When they're in the dark We don't know much about them. We presume that they're not harmful But they are and we know they're harmful because of their structure and because of using these standard read-across methods And that's the concern we have if the commission doesn't act on this petition to make a strong statement to ban all of these from these uses Thank you very much commissioner robinson Thank you. Um first dr. Lucas Let me just say that I share your frustration about the fire data and have for as long as I've been on the commission My staff and I have worked very hard trying to improve that data The only place that we've been able to think of that you could improve that data is with insurance companies We're presumably they do investigations with fire experts and come up with Segregation claims if they exist So if you come up with any ideas on how we might get that we would love to have it Because as soon as people's came in and started or arguing things to me there were 180 degrees different based on the same data I knew we had a problem. So I know we have that but since we don't have Better data than that. Let me turn it. Can I answer that? Yes the I written an article two years ago on on precisely this point and which I think I have to send to you That I do believe that there would be a Perfect opportunity for the insurance companies to cooperate in the public benefit Because without violating any antitrust relationships and without compromising their A a customer base integrity What they could do is they could provide reports of these A Analyzed fire causes as determined by experts much more intensively studied than the fire department personnel which generally lack Could we talk about this when it's not during my five minutes because I'd love to hear more But let me just turn for a moment. Thank you. I appreciate it I just let me just turn for a moment to the question about the methodology because I do understand that when you have a group of chemicals They have the structural similarities and physical and chemical Properties that we that we look at and they're the same And you have information about a few and then you can do the read across and come up with this grouping But I also understand I want to go to the next step And I think that's either for you dr. Lucas or for dr. Singla I would love to know if you know of any of these Non-polymeric additive organohalogen fire retardants that would be in this group That's within the petition that have enough structural differences that we would expect a different endpoint Not not being a health expert. I can't answer that question but from a fire safety and fire Retardancy properties. They're all the same. Okay, dr. Singla. Do you have anything to add to that? Yes, I I'd say that The read across can be applied in a number of different ways to understand the toxicity of the whole class. So First there's the kind of fundamental physical chemical properties that predict the substance's tendency to be persistent by accumulative and interliving cells and I would say that's the core Attribute shared by the entire class Um, but if you think about the kind of whole wide world of chemicals as a universe like ours Then that class of organohalogen flame retardants would be like a galaxy And it's that fundamental organohalogen nature that holds it together But then kind of within that galaxy, there's clusters of stars and these are The clusters of chemicals that have additional structural similarities And it's kind of within these clusters and between clusters that are close to each other That the read across can again be employed to Interpolate or extrapolate more specific information about the particular harms that a chemical can cause And so to use your language to my knowledge there's Sorry, no no go I was I was just going to add that to my knowledge that there's um There are not um specific structural elements of this organohalogen class that would kind of exclude them from that galaxy Okay. Thank you. I'm let me just ask one Unrelated follow-up question to you doctor Singla, could you tell us what your I know you've been listening to the testimony and there's been testimony about the epa Having tested 50 chemicals and finding them safe. Could you tell us if you have any information on that? Yes, I think I would say that I think the the epa would be The best source of information about that claim But from conversations with the epa. It's my understanding that that statement was made Based on a screening assessment that they that they have performed and the 50 flame retardants in question Are polymeric flame retardant? And that's the criteria that they're those were based on old criteria and that the criteria that they're currently now using They would not consider those as safe or safer Okay, I'm in my last minute. So let me just ask you dr. Berberska Um, what why was the fire in the tv not relevant? uh because the uh Statistic show that uh in europe they have not used the uh these halogenated frs That we do and the losses in europe are in fact not higher but lower than ours So that obviously in the real world does not support that there's a uh a problem that occurs from a non-usage Thank you Thank you commissioner berkel Thank you, mr. Chair and thank you all to our panelists and the two who are not here Today for your testimony and your help in shedding some light on this issue and this petition Doctor i'm going to call you dr. Vito I'll find the happy medium On one of your slides in your powerpoint you mentioned that In the heading is no meaningful fire safety benefit from additive frs and electronic enclosures none at all well, certainly the uh That's why i think the distinction between testing that's not relevant to real life versus statistics from real life The statistics from real life do not support that america's safer than europe because we've been adding these uh Noxious chemicals and they haven't uh they instead show the opposite So the that is the only guideline that we have to go by for the real world at the moment and that certainly does not support the industry's point of view But the and the problem i see and we've kind of all acknowledged it here today is the is the issue of the data and Information and whether it's reliable or not with regards to this information of the fire data so it's It's rather speculative because we don't know if the data that we have is accurate and so Well, yes, that that is correct and but you know the the thing to remember is that There's no there's no there's no bias. Certainly. We don't believe that NFPA or A femur bias in the way they collect and report the data but Given that the statistics do not support that any of these noxious chemicals have had a beneficial role And that i think is a very important point Um and one last question dr. Vito. Um, you mentioned flaming number The flaming number so are you referring to small? Flame open flame or large open flame or do you not make that distinction? There's small open flames. There's not very many that are in the category of Large open flames being the first ignited item and typically those would be in the incendiaryism Category so that's automatically excluded. You know somebody pours two gallons of gasoline and then lights it That's we don't consider in the profession that that's a preventable type of Incident thank you. Dr. Lucas in your testimony. You talked about environmental persistence In how these chemicals can accumulate from one generation to the next I this morning dr. Bloom Talked about biochemical accumulation and I think dr. Singler mentioned the same terminology Would you say that those two are the same? Are they just different use? Different terminology to describe the same Yeah, well one one is just the accumulation up the food chain, but the other one is the fact that they will persist in a long period of time So there's evidence now that even today Some of these chemicals are migrating out of landfills either by birds eating the Things moving it away or actually in the leachate and so we know that over You know landfills are not designed to last for 500 years So we know eventually some of these chemicals are going to start breaking down and will become persistent in the environment And so my question is and I'll ask you the same question. I asked dr. Bloom Is does this persistence this environmental persistence that you're referring to? Does that necessarily translate to risk? I think it will because these chemicals are going to break down and one of the issues is what chemicals do they break down to? And what is the toxicity of those chemicals and there I just heard a recent study about The de bromination of some compounds so from a relatively safe Brominated compound to a lesser brominated compound so the toxicity actually increased as these chemicals were in the environment Do you have any data that you could provide to us on that? Whether when there's an environmental persistence how that translates to risk and Exposure hazards we'll get you that. Thank you And I'm coming down to my last minute here and so I guess I would ask and this will probably be a follow-up question So as I mentioned in an earlier panel today We are looking at phthalates and it's been mentioned here today And what I've heard throughout the course of these panels is that the structure Makes these chemicals very similar, but that's not what we're hearing when we talk about phthalates And so my question to all of you is what's the difference between the phthalates and these chemicals that we're talking about today? Why in one instance? Pardon me, this is this is dr. Singla if I could speak to that question I would say that There are many different ways that chemicals can be grouped that are all scientifically accurate But what's important is That the grouping needs to be appropriate to answer the question at hand So in the case of phthalates the chronic hazard advisory panel needed to create the grouping For the task of a quantitative cumulative risk assessment of phthalates And the group of five phthalates that they created was appropriate For that task and for that question, but not necessarily for others so for example the Biomonitoring california program lists all ortho phthalates as a group for biomonitoring Which is a far larger class than the five phthalates that the chup considered But both these classes are scientifically accurate and appropriate for the purposes for which they were created And here we're with the organo halogen flame retardants We're creating a class of substances for consideration Of whether the substance may cause substantial injury or illness During or as a result of any customer customary or reasonable use perceivable use including Perceivable ingestion by children So the characteristics that we're using to create this class of organo halogen flame retardants speaks directly to these criteria that The fact that human exposure will occur and that children are more vulnerable And that the substances are toxic and may cause harm. So I would say here the the class of Dr. Singler, I'm going to ask you to wrap that up I've let you go a little bit longer because you don't have the same clock that we do But could you wrap your answer up? Please? Thank you, dr. Singler, and I probably will be following up with your explanations. Very helpful. Thank you Commissioner Mohorovic. Thank you, mr. Chairman and to the entire panel for their participation today as well as our testimony dr. Davies TBBPA I'm interested in the conflicting evidence that we've heard today about TBBPA Is it correct that washington state has listed TBBPA as a chemical of high concern to children? Yes And your testimony reflect i'm just going to quote that TBBPA was detected in four plastic electrical Enclosure components and the percent levels indicating that it was used as an additive flame retardant So does anybody on the panel disagree that TBBPA is absolutely in scope for the for this petition for this Petition based on the evidence provided by washington state. Does anybody disagree? It is okay, so the so the evidence with regards to TBBPA is relevant given the scope of the petition Dr. Sass you mentioned a screening activity that took place involving Many organohalogens, and I think your testimony concluded that all of them were found to be unsafe or however that the screening failed Did that include deep TBBPA? As far as you know, yeah, I was going to say I'm going to check my notes to see if I wrote that down But if not, I really have to refer to the attachment of the back of the petition. I'm sorry And I do not have specifics in this testimony. I'm sorry on the spot about that I mean the reason I'm interested in this is because we've heard evidence and studies and some journals provided by By other testimony today about the safety of TBBPA Would anybody want to comment on that or how that Or have you read any of those and you found you found that the the arguments were not valid? I mean could it be debunked in any way? I would just like thank you make a comment because not being a toxicologist, but being a you know a scientist The number of research papers about PBDEs and their toxicity is Continuing to increase today And so they were introduced in the 70s and there was very little research and it took 30 years to get to the point Where we have enough data amass that it's it's a well Discovered fact that yes, they are you know toxic property So when you bring in a new chemical it looks like the research on the toxicity can lag the introduction of the product by decades Thank you I could just comment briefly that the I believe the the study and in question Um presented by an earlier panel Acknowledge that TBBPA is toxic And their claim is that the the exposure is so low that it's not a problem But TBBPA is toxic to acknowledge that and why would you put a toxic chemical? In a children's product that they will be exposed to when it's not necessary Does anybody on the panel know whether or not EPA is looked at TBBPA in particular? No, yes, this is dr. Singla again. They they have completed And then initial Look at TBBPA and but have not actually done a risk assessment So they have not drawn any conclusions yet as to their risk, but TBBPA may or may not pose Okay, thank you very much. Dr. Pervis commissioner I'd like to answer a little bit differently in uh, something that uh, Dr. Lucas brought up a little bit earlier that the when it comes to the fire Aspects and especially from the point of view of firefighter exposure and health We have to not just look at the chemical in question We have to look at the pyrolysis and combustion incomplete combustion products as they are generated in the high temperature environments And those are when when it comes to chemicals that are produced such as dioxins and furans the uh, those A products breakdown products tend to be way way more toxic than the original material that you started with So it to just narrow on Studies biological studies of the chemical itself when you deal with the fire environment Is I think grossly unfair to public health? Because you have to take into account what happens in fire. Okay. Thank you very much. Dr. Brauskas Do you have why why do you believe why do you think that? The ul standards include small open flame performance test for flammability on the exterior housing of electrical components generally, okay, this is There's a long story and cpsc actually played maybe 45 seconds of our secretaries. I'll try to be very brief the You all took a very odd stance with televisions compared to most of the categories of electronic equipment And there was I think a very unfortunate incident in the early 1970s right as cpsc was being formed Where there were some manufacturers that are producing instant on television sets that were just uh flaming right and left and ul and cpsc got together and said we have to stop this dead in its tracks That created a legacy which was you know, it was gross negligence on a part of a specific manufacturer But it resulted in a complete distortion of that field which has remained to this day because You well felt that his hands are tied that really can't back down on the safety issue even though the safety issue is not there Thank you very much. And I do want to thank every member of the panel At this point, yeah, the panel is dismissed now in terms of the proceedings The commissioners were asked to forego making opening statements, but we were told we could have up to three minutes for a closing statement I'm going to tell you I have no closing statement, but I will ask my colleagues if they do commissioner robinson I will stick with the three minutes. First of all, I just want to thank all of the participants today This was just incredibly informative and we had such a talented group from so many different fields And I really really appreciate it I confess when I first reviewed this petition that I did not do so With the limitations that are so specifically and explicitly built into the petition of being looking only at non-polymer additive organo halogen flame retardants in four product categories And when you do that it's something that I think that this commission should take very seriously We're not looking at flame retardants. Generally not at polymers not at reactive Applications and not into other product categories I know that we know a lot about a few of these products and I know about the methodology of The read across and why we have this category in front of us I'm really looking forward to The comments that will come from Presumably people in this audience and beyond and also from our staff with respect to what the recommendations are and what we should do With respect to this this petition I think we start with the question that linda bernbaum said this morning that we should start with And that is do we need these toxic chemicals in these four product categories? In order to be safer the step two that I would suggest is that is this a proper grouping scientifically for regulatory purposes? Look at the structural differences. Are they allowed and do we have any different end points? Although i've not heard any today and my suggestion is what that the third step would be are these the proper Product category should we have fewer should we have more? And the next question I would want to look at is whether if we were going to issue out in a band Whether it would be a band of only existing products Or is there really something that we should be doing with respect to the to the future products again? I look forward to The staff's comments and for all of this the comments from the public With respect to uh recommending whether we what we do with respect to these limited flame rip tardens In these limited products and again, let me just say that We here at the commission could not do our jobs without the kind of participation that we've seen today And i'm just very very grateful for it. Thank you. Thank you commissioner burkle Thank you, mr. Chair First let me begin also by Commending and thanking the six panels who were here today Each and every panel added value to this discussion and to our knowledge about what's included in the petition and so To all the participants. Thank you very much um, we can't I often say this when i'm out speaking. We often say I will say I I'm not an expert. You are the experts. It's why it's important for us to hear from all of you And why we will look forward to your comments As we proceed with this petition As has become a theme of mine. I like to talk about incrementalism and uh any time you paint with a broad brush I think You can find yourself in a difficult situation possibly eliminating some good and throwing the baby out with the bath water so To that end that is probably my biggest concern is the depth of the petition But today's testimony has been very valuable and we look forward to Really additional information. We will have qfr's and and go forward with in this inquiry But again, um, thank you very much. Mr. Chairman. We missed you being here today I know you're watching and I've if I appear of like I've been texting throughout the hearing it was with our chairman so We we know you're here with us in spirit. Thank you all very much and again We will look forward to and I encourage the public to comment on this petition and to uh to let us hear your thoughts Thank you, mr. Chair. Thank you. Uh, commissioner moho rovick. Thank you, mr. Chairman I also would like to thank all the participants and the panel members today For providing the testimony and in particular I want to thank and compliment our staff for being able to put together A very very difficult hearing off-site from my normal location seamlessly Allowing others to contribute to not only facilities but it of course. Thank you very much. This was Tough sledding and done in a fantastic fashion I think today the the idea and methodology is proposed by the petitioners in a class-based approach There was a lot of compelling testimony Towards taking that approach and there's a lot to think about From my perspective In taking that kind of approach it does subject The methodology to scrutiny should there be one single member of the class that for some A validated study has been found to be healthy Or safe in the use scenarios as As projected by the petitioners here Whether it be mouthing whether it be inhalation Dermal or hand to mouth or other exposure Patterns and vehicles so there's much more to be found on that i'm interested also in the to finding out more about What our sister agency at epa has studied on potentially some of the chemicals? Or class of chemicals in question But i want to again thank everyone and thank you mr. Chairman as our acting chairman You did an admirable job in our chairman's absence and of course we all wish mr. K the best speedy recovery So i would like in just in closing for this entire panel to thank the commissioners and their extraordinary staffs a lot of what we do is As a result of the exceptional work done by our various staff So thank all of you And commissioner mohorovic touched on a point that has to be stressed right now We're sitting in a room that is not used to this kind of a hearing and if you just stop and think about the logistics that went into this And the cameras and the remote Phone in it's just an huge challenge. So They're just an enormous number of offices that need to be thanked I'd love to go through individual by individual and thank them But you have to understand who was involved in this the office of the secretariat and our able secretary holding up the time cards Play did a yeoman job But the office of facilities management our office of information technology our office of communications The office of the general council in telling us The rules of the road for asking questions and of course our very modest office of the executive director and patricia adkins Thank you all for appearing today. This was an extraordinary day, and we really appreciate it