Which comes first--Big Toxics' profits or health?

[Celerity]

Stricter European Union regulation of toxic chemicals is being jeopardised by corporate lobbying.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/which-comes-first-big-toxics-profits-or-health



‘Stop deindustrialisation!’ is the latest hyperbole from the Verband der Chemischen Industrie (German chemical-industry association) in pushing back against more robust regulation of toxic chemicals. A major lobby domestically and on the European level, one of its tactics is to shift the focus from the huge impacts of these substances on our health and the environment—and scaremonger over threatened ‘competitiveness’ instead.

As well as demanding action to tackle high energy prices, VCI has in its sights the European Union’s most important legislation in this arena, REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals), which it demands the EU institutions ‘avoid tightening’. Its also pushes to ‘stem the tide of new regulation’ and ‘prevent blanket bans’ of toxic chemicals.

Not fit for purpose

We have been here before. Twenty years ago, the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC) used exactly the same rhetoric—called out at the time by Corporate Europe Observatory—when it opposed the introduction of the original REACH rules. These would purportedly ‘de-industrialise Europe’ and result in two million job losses. In fact, since 2002 the EU’s export of chemicals has grown on average by a remarkable 6.7 per cent annually.

But REACH is no longer fit for purpose. The European Green Deal promised action towards a toxic-free environment, and the European Commission committed itself to revising the regulation, since the current rules are failing to get toxic chemicals off the market at anything like the pace needed to resolve the pollution crisis.

snip

[malaise]

1. Profits

Always

[Wonder Why]

2. Right on! Poor people, by definition, haven't the money to buy politicians.