Page 25 - Sonoma County Gazette February 2020

Fluoride Lawsut UPDATE
By Carol Goodwin Blick
For the first time in the 43-year
history of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), citizens succeed in bringing a suit to trial under TSCA Section 21. The Court delivered its ruling on 12/30/2019.
“The case is being watched in part for what it could portend for future efforts to regulate chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act,” said Erik C. Baptist, a partner with Wiley Rein LLP.
In 2017 the Court issued an Order denying EPA’s Motion to Dismiss, noting “The purpose of citizen petitions is to ensure the EPA does not overlook unreasonable risks to health or the environment.
Citizen participation is broadly permitted to ensure that bureaucratic lethargy does not prevent the appropriate administration of this vital authority.
The EPA’s interpretation [to dismiss the case] would undermine the purpose of Section 21 by permitting it to deny even a petition that successfully identifies an unreasonable risk of harm to health or to the environment ... That a known unreasonable risk could be ignored by the EPA is contrary to the TSCA’s very purpose as well as the statute’s express command that the
EPA “shall” promulgate regulations when “an” unreasonable risk is found.
neurotoxicity of EPA-endorsed fluoride in drinking water.
In response to our success, some industry attorneys have called on industry groups to help defend EPA’s position (including lack of action)
The overall purpose of the Toxic Substances Control Act was to set in place a comprehensive, national scheme to protect humans and the environment from the dangers of toxic substances.”
This is a huge moment for us, and for the environmental movement as a whole. Finally, with experts from both sides presenting under oath, the EPA will be held accountable for decades of failing to protect citizens from the deliberate addition of fluoride, a known neurotoxin, to the public drinking water.
on regulating toxic chemicals. They understand the precedents being set and what that means for the future of industries dealing in harmful chemicals.
Trial in April
In his finding, “Chen [Judge Edward M. Chen]... suggests that some of the studies showing harm from fluoridation exposure are potentially compelling. He points to a trio of birth cohort epidemiology studies -- known as Bashash 2017, Bashash 2018, and Green 2019 -- as well as a recent study of pregnant women in California, which Chen writes ‘raise genuine issues of material fact that make summary judgment for the EPA inappropriate even under the rigorous scientific modes embraced by [TSCA sections] 6(b) and 26.’” - Maria Hegstad, Inside EPA (1/2/2020)
This case will set the precedent for how the courts handle future TSCA cases, and will inspire an increase
in the filing of citizen petitions and lawsuits by environmental, animal welfare and public health watchdog groups to compel EPA to review
Other groups may see filing
a petition with EPA to request a new rule as more direct way to get a chemical regulated or banned than the risk evaluation and risk management process in the statute.
The MSJ was the latest in a series of unsuccessful EPA motions to derail this citizens’ lawsuit on the
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the risks of specific commercial chemicals, and to require EPA to enact safer regulations.
The legal team working on this lawsuit has taken over a hundred hours of depositions from experts, including EPA employees, and
dealt with multiple motions by the Defendants, Plaintiffs, and the Court.
The weight will no longer be on watchdog groups
to convince the EPA of unreasonable risk; now an objective judge will decide, based on an independent review of the evidence.
At issue is whether adding industrial fluoride chemicals to the drinking water of over 200 million Americans will be ended due to
the unreasonable risk of fluoride’s neurotoxicity to the fetus and infant.
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