Brown’s order calls on the state’s consumer safety bureau to reduce chemicals used to ensure product safety. Fire safety authorities say there are ways to regulate the weave of fabrics and construction of products to reduce fire risk while limiting chemical use.
The newfound resolve to limit the chemicals will mark a reversal for several state agencies. State consumer product and environmental agencies have opposed several of state Sen. Mark Leno’s, D-San Francisco,efforts to limit flame-retardant chemicals in couches in 2007 through 2009.
Legislative review documents show that in 2007, both the California Department of Toxic Substances Control and the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment opposed proposed bills that would have limited chemical use.
In 2008 and 2009, the Department of Consumer Affairs opposed two bills that would have changed the state’s fire safety standard or called for removal of flame retardants from juvenile products, such as strollers and nursing pillows.
News reports and lobbying records show that the chemical industry spent tens of millions of dollars fighting such proposed bills and have lobbied the Department of Consumer Affairs and environmental agencies.
The American Chemistry Council, which represents makers of flame retardants, has said that the chemicals are safe as used and they play a key role in reducing fires in homes.
Russ Heimerich, a spokesman for the Department of Consumer Affairs, said officials are now committed to revising Technical Bulletin 117, the provision of law that leads to the heavy use of chemicals in furniture.
“We have been looking at TB 117 for a while, so now that we have direction from the governor, we’re in a position to execute that direction quickly,” Heimerich said.
He said the agency is planning to meet with environmental and industry leaders in coming weeks and aims to draft a new regulation by late August. He said they can take up to a year to take effect.
Sarah Jannsen, senior scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council, applauded the governor’s announcement. She said a mounting body of research has shown high levels of flame-fighting chemicals in Californians’ blood and linked them to reproductive and learning challenges.
“Ultimately the signal is that we’ll be able to have couches that meet modern manufacturing and flammability standards without contaminating our homes and our bodies with toxic chemicals,” she said.
Jannsen said a couch she bought in 2007 was infused with chlorinated Tris, a chemical that last year wasadded to the state’s list of cancer-causing substances.
Before Tris was outlawed, PBDEs, chemicals that have been linked to lower IQs in children, were banned from couches by 2003 state legislation. “We’ve replaced one bad chemical with another, again and again and again,” Jannsen said.
Andrew McGuire, policy director of Green Science Policy Institute, said Brown’s announcement is a major victory in what’s been a lengthy battle for environmentalists. He said the next phase of work needs to examine getting the chemicals, which have been found in the bodies of whales near Alaska, out of the environment.
He said couches are dumped in landfills, and rain carries the flame-retardant chemicals into groundwater and the ocean. “I think generations are going to deal with this,” he said.
Lawmakers will begin a discussion of the chemicals during an informational hearing June 26 called by Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, chairman of the Assembly Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials.
Note: KQED's Amy Standen has reported on this issue as well.
Mounting research and news reports have shown that fire-retardant chemicals are linked to health risks and that the industry that sells them has gone to great lengths to see that they are infused in furniture foam.