California Senator Barbara Boxer is using her new chairmanship of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) to shine a light on perchlorate, a residue of rocket fuel that was used for decades, most notably on military bases and defense industrial sites. The Natural Resources News Service claims some of the credit for revealing the dangers of perchlorate.
The public had never heard of the military pollutant until NRNS broke several stories about the toxin in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in 2001 and helped WSJ reporter Peter Waldman with several follow-up stories about it in 2002 and 2003.
The toxin now contaminates the drinking water of 20 million Americans, presenting particular risks to pregnant women, infants and young children. The Department of Defense faces a $19 billion liability for the clean-up of several military pollutants and is fighting the EPA’s stricter regulation of these toxins, perchlorate in particular.
After NRNS broke the stories in the WSJ, Sen. Boxer, then a minority member of the EPW Committee, credited the WSJ series for her concern and began agitating for the national clean-up of perchlorate. In 2004 she pushed successfully for her home state of California to regulate perchlorate.
When she ascended to the EPW chairmanship in January 2007, Boxer immediately introduced two bills to protect the nation’s drinking water from this contaminant. On January 26 she publicly attacked the “woefully inadequate” drinking water standard for perchlorate proposed by the Bush administration. On February 6 Boxer summoned expert testimony before EPW to challenge a December 2006 move by the EPA to discontinue all testing of perchlorate in drinking water. Despite these actions, on April 12 the EPA again delayed setting perchlorate drinking water standards, citing a “need for additional investigation.”
According to OMB Watch, the EPA has been “assessing” perchlorate since 1998. Boxer said, “I am outraged that the EPA has yet again refused to do its duty to protect the health of our families and communities from perchlorate pollution,” giving notice to EPA and the Pentagon that she plans to keep her eye on them.
