ENVIRONMENTAL LEGAL BLOGS

THIS YEAR'S CALIFORNIA FORAY INTO "BIOMONITORING"

     Last year, I Posted about California Senate Bill 600 (see "BIOMONITORING" under 'CATEGORIES" on the right-hand side of this page); I reported that the Governor had vetoed the bill.

     Well, guess what's back?  On February 21, 2006, State Senators Perata and Ortiz introduced SB 1379, which provides in opening part:

SB 1379, as introduced, Perata  Biomonitoring.   Existing law establishes various programs for the protection ofthe public from exposure to toxins, including, but not limited to, the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Act, administered by the
State Department of Health Services, which imposes a fee uponmanufacturers or persons who are responsible for lead contamination and applies the proceeds of the fee to reduction or elimination of the harm caused by the lead contamination. 

This bill would require the Division of Environmental and Occupational Disease Control within the department to establish the Healthy Californians Biomonitoring Program to monitor the presence and concentration of designated chemicals, as defined, in Californians.

This bill would require the department and the agency to establish an advisory panel to assist the department and the agency. The bill would establish the Healthy Californians Biomonitoring Fund fordeposit of funds, for expenditure by the department and agency upon appropriation by the Legislature, for the biomonitoring program. The bill would require the department to provide public access toinformation, and to report to the Legislature and the public.

     "Designated chemicals", mentioned above, would be defined as "those chemicals that are known to, or strongly suspected of, adversely impacting human health or development, based upon scientific, peer-reviewed animal, human, or in vitro studies."  The specific chemicals would be chosen based upon the recommendations of an 80-member "Advisory Panel", which would recommend to the Secretary for Environmental Protection and the Director of the Department of Health Services "Chemicals that are priorities for biomonitoring in California and communities where biomonitoring will take place."

     The full text of the bill can be found here.  I commend to you my analysis of last year's SB 600 (my Post of June 27, 2005); my thoughts are the same about this latest proposed waste of taxpayer dollars (yes, this bill would if enacted cost money--probably a whole lot of money--see "Article 3" of the bill).

SB 600

   Described in my Post of June 27, 2005 (see BIOMONITORING under CATEGORIES, right-hand side of this page).  The Governor has vetoed the bill.

"BIOMONITORING"

     The Monterey Herald today carries an AP report that the federal government has offered California $1.7 million for "training, laboratory tests and technical support" to measure the levels of toxic chemicals in California residents (i.e., "biomonitoring").  The report notes:

A link between such a "body burden" and negative health effects has not yet been scientifically proven. But many researchers suspect that pollutants in the blood cause long-term damage, perhaps contributing to a decline in fertility, or quietly lowering the IQs of children....

      The California Legislature is considering the enactment of the State's own "biomonitoring" program.  At a cost estimated by the Assembly Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials to be about $4 million annually, Senate Bill 600  by Assemblymember Deborah Ortiz (D-Sacramento) would establish the "Healthy Californians Biomonitoring Program" to implement "oversight, monitoring and assessment" of the levels of pollutants in the bodies of California residents.

     It is difficult to believe that this program would end up costing only $4 million annually.  As the bill itself recites, "An estimated 85,000 chemicals are registered for use today in the United States. Another 2,000 chemicals are added each year."    Moreover, the bill goes on to recite that  "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has documented the presence of 116 environmental chemicals in the blood and urine of Americans of all ages and races."

     How is a $4 million/year program going to tackle a subject this vast, especially where (as noted earlier) a link between the general levels of pollutants in the body and negative health effects "has not yet been scientifically proven."  As the Assembly Committee analysis referenced above further noted in relating concerns expressed by opponents of the bill:

The scientific basis for studying chemicals in the human, however, faces a number of obstacles.  The basic information concerning the health effects of chemicals is largely absent for many tens of thousands of chemicals.  Accompanying this extensive "data gap" for basic kinds of health effects data (e.g., birth defects, cancer causing) is an even more profound absence of information regarding more subtle health impacts, such as those affecting the nervous or endocrine systems. Further complicating such inquiries is the absence of analytic methods or agreed upon protocols for detecting many chemicals.

     While Proposition 65 is a previous health initiative that potentially tackles a study of the universe of chemicals, the study is at least focused on only two diseases-- cancer and reproductive toxicity.  There is no such limitation in SB 600-- indeed, the bill would authorize the study of tens of thousands of chemicals and presumably then attempt to link those chemicals to any identifiable disease.  This is the type of open-ended, unfocused "study bureaucracy" that could not carry out its mission if the annual funds available were $40 million or $400 million, let alone a measly $4 million.

     The issue for the bill's critics, including me, is not whether it is worthwhile to try to prevent and cure disease.  Of course it is.  The issue is that SB 600 proposes a myopic mission with no contours or specific direction, a feel-good measure that will cost a bunch and likely do little good. 

     The Assembly, however, may be into feel-good measures even more than the Senate (which has already passed the bill); and the Assembly will likely pass this bill on a yet-again party-line vote.  The Governor should have his veto pen ready.