Nose Against the Glass

As we all have been waiting the past few weeks for the Bush administration to relax existing requirements in order to deregulate and weaken environmental protections along comes a National Academy of Science's report commissioned by the EPA. The report was made public on 12/3 at www.nas.edu. 

According to the NY Times 12/4 article, the report highlights how certain EPA regulatory assumptions identify information gaps as defaults and therefore treat a suspected material as no risk. In the specific case of Fragrance materials which are always used in very complex combinations, I have to wonder how the pending DfE (Design for the Environment) material review module which is expected to be running by year end, will ever pass EPA Management's final  review. 

The external DfE module which has been in development for over a year and is a positive process step to develop fragrances for institutional and consumer products that are rinsed off down the drain. Fragrance industry self regulating agencies were involved in the standards phase and managed to finally drop their self preservation stances in the light of intense political and economic pressure. Now we have to worry about the final days of the Bush administrations low regard for environment regulation and not forgotten, Child Safety or Worker Safety programs?

My Green nose is against the glass.