Greens Say "We Were All Duped"? Speak for Yourselves.
That is the primary argument the Washington Conservation Voters, the Washington Toxics Coalition and the Environmental Priorities Coalition make in advocating for one of their 2012 "Environmental Priorities" - a proposal to ban "Tris" flame retardant compounds.
The Washington Toxics Coalition and the Washington Conservation Voters argue that the ban on Tris is necessary because:
A few years ago Washington state told manufacturers to stop using PBDEs, harmful toxic flame retardants. The industry’s response? Instead of using safer chemicals, they blindly switched to cancer-causing Tris flame retardants without considering health and environmental impacts.
Setting aside the accuracy of their claims (who would trust the word of those who admit to being easily duped?), there is one major problem with their claim: all of this was predicted.
In 2006, we wrote an editorial about the potential ban on PBDEs noting that the ban would likely increase the risk to human health. PBDEs have been widely studied and Europe and other jurisdictions refused to ban them because the risks were known and small. Advocates of the ban justified banning it anyway, using the "precautionary principle" which argues that when we don't know all the environmental risks, ban the substance out of "precaution." This, however, creates its own risks. We wrote at the time:
Interestingly, applying the principle here may actually increase the threat to public safety not only from fire but from toxic chemicals that replace deca-BDE. DOE notes that of the eleven potential flame-retardant alternatives to deca-BDE, none of them have its history of scientific study. If lawmakers ban deca-BDE they would be left with a Catch-22. They could either allow a potentially toxic substitute with less scientific study (in violation of the precautionary principle) or reduce fire safety standards because no alternative can meet the level of certainty demanded by the activists. In either case, banning deca-BDE would increase the risk to public health - either from toxic replacement chemicals or from reductions in fire safety.
We clearly predicted at the time that banning a well-known compound could lead to unsafe substitutes that increased risks.
In 2005 and 2006, the bill didn't pass, so the legislation was modified to address this concern. The revised bill, offered in 2007, required the Department of Ecology to certify that safe alternatives existed.
The Washington Toxics Coalition assured the legislature that acceptable alternatives existed. Banning PBDEs would lead those required to meet flammability regulations to choose one of these alternatives. Ironically, this was contradicted by Ecology Director Ted Sturdevant, who was the agency's lobbyist at the time, in his testimony before the legislature on January 9, 2007. He said there was one potential alternative, but Ecology had not examined it.
At the time, however, the Toxics Coalition argued that PBDEs were so dangerous, switching would virtually guarantee a safer alternative. Now, the coalition is using the opposite argument to justify a new ban.
Whatever the alternatives, we noted at the time that businesses weren't going to wait around for a decision they knew DOE would make. In 2007, we wrote:
No business is going to risk its future on the potential decision of a government panel that has already publicly stated its desired outcome. Business leaders are likely to believe that there is a bias against PBDEs.
Knowing what was coming, businesses would begin changing immediately, even if safe alternatives didn't exist. That appears to be exactly what happened. Again, the Washington Toxics Coalition may have been duped, but we weren't.
It is worth noting that the original ban on PBDEs was probably unjustifiable in the first place. The European Union and other risk-averse jurisdictions have refused to ban them because the science simply does not support a ban.
If Tris truly is a compound we should restrict, the irony is that the Washington Toxics Coalition will have pushed the state to ban a low-risk compound in favor of a high-risk compound. Given the Coalition's accuracy regarding chemical claims in the past, it is dangerous to assume they are correct about the risks from Tris.
So, now, the Washington Toxics Coalition is back asking for another ban with the justification that their gullibility in 2005, 2006 and 2007 justifies support for their bill in 2011. So be it. But, when the greens claim we were "all" duped, they should stick to speaking for themselves.
