Why the Senate Should Be Skeptical of Senator Diane Feinstein's Phthalates Amendment

This week, the U.S. Senate is debating a bill to reform the Consumer Product Safety Commission to, among other things, provide greater protection for children’s products (S. 2663).  On March 4th, Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) offered an amendment to the bill (S.Amdt. 4104), which would “prohibit the manufacture, sale, or distribution in commerce of certain children’s products and child care articles that contain specified phthalates.”
Phthalates make plastics soft and pliable.  

They are found in lifesaving IV tubes, your shower curtain, your car’s dashboard, your son’s rubber boots, your computer cables and a whole host of other everyday products.  Phthalates have been used safely for more than 50 years.
  
Despite the fact that such agencies as the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the European Union’s Institute of Health and Consumer Protection have all studied phthalates and have concluded that there exists no evidence of actual harm to humans, special interest groups -- motivated more by politics than actual science -- are working to ban phthalates.
Expert scientists who have studied phthalates for years are speaking out.  Recently, Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H., President of the American Council on Science and Health, joined CFIF Corporate Counsel & Senior Vice President Renee Giachino to discuss the issue and offer criticism of a recent report published by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

SoldiersMum wrote:Why the Senate Should Be Skeptical of Senator Diane Feinstein's Phthalates Amendment

This week, the U.S. Senate is debating a bill to reform the Consumer Product Safety Commission to, among other things, provide greater protection for children’s products (S. 2663).  On March 4th, Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) offered an amendment to the bill (S.Amdt. 4104), which would “prohibit the manufacture, sale, or distribution in commerce of certain children’s products and child care articles that contain specified phthalates.”
Phthalates make plastics soft and pliable.  

They are found in lifesaving IV tubes, your shower curtain, your car’s dashboard, your son’s rubber boots, your computer cables and a whole host of other everyday products.  Phthalates have been used safely for more than 50 years.
  
Despite the fact that such agencies as the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the European Union’s Institute of Health and Consumer Protection have all studied phthalates and have concluded that there exists no evidence of actual harm to humans, special interest groups -- motivated more by politics than actual science -- are working to ban phthalates.
Expert scientists who have studied phthalates for years are speaking out.  Recently, Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H., President of the American Council on Science and Health, joined CFIF Corporate Counsel & Senior Vice President Renee Giachino to discuss the issue and offer criticism of a recent report published by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Is this good or bad? Why I put the bad in there is because I saw D-CA in it.

Just another in the long line of non-existent threats that the EPA will regulate a cost of $Billions to the U.S. Economy.  

The EPA must have more things to regulate.  They exist only to regulate -- that is, they exist to make up reasons for their continued existence.  This is the EPA trying to keep itself alive - to keep government employees employed - solely for the sake of continued existence & employment.  This is because the REAL dire threats to health and the environment were all fully regulated 20 to 30 years ago.  Since then, they have encouraged and backed interest groups to lobby Congress for more regulations - regardless of any actual threat to health or environment, and regardless of any benefit to regulation.

EPA exists to regulate, and once things are regulated they must find new things to regulate.  Ideally, before regulation there should be a problem in need of a solution.  There aren't any anymore.  Therefore, most of what EPA does is search for new problems which can be exaggerrated or lied about in order to justify more regulation.  In other words, they CREATE phony environmental problems in order to justify their continued existence.

See what happens because we discarded the Constitution.  The EPA will eventually regulate the amount of lint you may have in your bellybutton.  There is no end to this madness.