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It's time for Congress to pass the Safe Chemicals Act and provide vigorous oversight of chemical use to ensure that all products, including children's products, are safe!

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Subject: Unbelievable Your message to friends:

Dear Friend,

We all know millions of gallons of oil are spilling into the Gulf of Mexico everyday, but adding insult to injury, the chemicals that are being used to disperse the oil are also toxic.

*Join me and take two minutes to urge Congress to protect our environment and our families by passing the Safe Chemicals Act which will provide vigorous oversight of chemical use to ensure that all products, including children's products, are safe--and encourage them to amend the Act to cover oil spill dispersants:

http://action.momsrising.org/cms/letter/SafeChemicalsAct?referring_akid=2167.150190.CcRYwV&source=taf

What's happening in the Gulf of Mexico is just one example of the preventable toxics hazards that are unleashed by a lack of oversight of the chemical industry. Recent news stories are revealing that the dispersants being used by BP have already made many Gulf workers sick, and wind blown dispersants are suspected of causing crop damage inland.

Yet less toxic dispersants have been available all along. In fact, the dispersant being used in the Gulf, Corexit 9500, has been banned in United Kingdom since 1998, and the New York Times reported the the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advised BP to use a less toxic dispersant.

Similarly, toxic children's products continue to flood American markets even though non-toxic alternatives are available both here in the U.S., as well as in other countries where there is more effective oversight of the chemicals industry.

We need immediate action to provide better oversight of the chemicals industry to protect the Gulf, Gulf workers, and all of America’s children and families.

Thank you. Together we are a powerful force for women, children, and families.

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Help the Gulf & Our Kids

Urge Congress to Pass the Safe Chemicals Act

Millions of gallons of oil are spilling into the Gulf of Mexico. To make matters worse, the chemicals they're using to disperse the oil are toxic.

Dear Congressperson,

As one of a million members of MomsRising.org, I urge you to support the Safe Chemicals Act of 2010 in order to provide vigorous oversight of chemical use and to ensure all products, including children's products, are safe.  The Safe Chemicals Act should also be amended to cover oil spill dispersants.

The repetitive recalls of toxic toys after they've reached store shelves, and the current use of toxic dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico, demonstrate the urgent need for this legislation.

This long-awaited, landmark legislation is necessary to protect the public from toxic chemicals.  While there are differences between the House and Senate versions of the legislation, the Safe Chemicals Act includes a number of essential reforms that would substantially improve public health protections:

*Requiring chemical companies to develop and make publicly available basic health and safety information for all chemicals.

*Requiring chemicals to meet a safety standard that protect vulnerable sub-populations, including pregnant women and children.

*Creating a new program to identify communities that are “hot spots” for toxic chemicals and to take action to reduce exposures.

*Expediting safety determinations and actions to restrict some of the most notorious chemicals, like formaldehyde, vinyl chloride, and flame retardants.

The Safe Chemicals Act would amend the federal Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA). The current TSCA law is widely acknowledged to be ineffective. TSCA ‘grandfathered in’ 62,000 chemicals at the time it passed without requiring any testing or demonstration of safety. In the ensuing three decades under TSCA, EPA has required testing for only a few hundred of those chemicals, and has only partially restricted five. Meanwhile, a growing body of science has documented widespread human exposures to toxic chemicals in everyday products, and has linked those exposures to the rising incidence of a number of serious chronic diseases and disorders, including reduced fertility, learning disabilities, breast and prostate cancer, and certain childhood cancers.

We also urge you to make sure that specific provisions to ensure the safety of oil spill dispersants — more than one million gallons of which have now been released into the Gulf of Mexico – are added to the pending bill to overhaul the 34-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Under current law, government cannot compel dispersant makers to disclose the chemicals used in their products; nor are they required to test their products sufficiently to ensure their safety — two fundamental flaws that are making a bad situation worse in the Gulf.

Please take action now to move forward the Safe Chemicals Act of 2010--along with an amendment to cover oil spill dispersants--in order to provide vigorous oversight of chemical use and to ensure all products, including children's products, are safer.

Thank you!

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