http://www.ewg.org/issues/PFCs/20041217/index.php
December 17, 2004
Press Release from the
Environmental Working Group
Contact: Lauren Sucher, 202/667-6982
Environmental Working
Group (EWG) Statement on Opening Arguments of Teflon Chemical Trial
December 17, 2004 —
Yesterday an Environmental Protection Agency administrative law judge held
the first hearing in the trial of of EPA vs. DuPont for allegedly covering
up information about the health effects of a toxic, indestructible chemical
used to make Teflon that has turned up in over 95 percent of Americans'
blood. The lawsuit began after EWG gave EPA documents showing that DuPont
had failed for twenty years to provide the Agency with critical health information
about its Teflon chemical. After a year-long investigation EPA filed a complaint
against DuPont, finding that the company engaged in unlawful behavior on
three separate counts of hiding critical study results in company file cabinets
for up to 20 years.
Internal DuPont documents
show that in the early 1980s scientists at the company's Parkersburg, W.
Va. Teflon plant discovered startling evidence that a key Teflon ingredient
had contaminated local drinking water supplies, and that babies of plant
workers had a Teflon ingredient in their cord blood and were born with birth
defects. DuPont failed to submit these findings to the federal government,
and also failed to tell workers and the local communities of the contamination.
EPA lawyers have determined that these documents were suppressed in violation
of two federal laws — the nation's toxic chemical pollution law (the
Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA), and the law governing toxic chemicals
at industrial facilities, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
At the hearing, DuPont
argued that it didn't have to tell EPA about the pollution connected with
its highly profitable Teflon chemical, because the company was taking part
in an amnesty program, the so-called Compliance Audit Program, or CAP. Provisions
of the CAP program were debated, but there is one overarching point: DuPont
never submitted these documents to EPA, under the amnesty program or under
TSCA.
"Because DuPont
did not give EPA this damaging information about their Teflon chemical under
the law or under a voluntary amnesty program, they should be subject to
the maximum fine of $313 million," said EWG Vice President for Research
Jane Houlihan.
"DuPont would have
us believe that EPA has no authority to ask chemical companies for basic
health and safety information about untested chemicals that Americans are
exposed to every day," continued Houlihan. "Under the public health
system invented yesterday by DuPont's lawyers, EPA would be unable to protect
anyone from exposures to chemicals like this toxic, persistent Teflon ingredient.
Thankfully, that's not the case."
# # #
The Environmental Working
Group is a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, DC that
uses the power of information to protect human health and the environment.
Their four years' worth of research on Teflon chemistry can be viewed at
http://www.ewg.org/issues/PFCs/index.php.
To read the Federal
Register Notice stating that EPA has the power to enforce TSCA even for
companies who participated in the amnesty, or CAP program, please click
here (PDF file).
