Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2017

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.3 • 107.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2017

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, a former Environmental Protection Agency official, fought for years to protect American consumers from toxic chemicals found in everyday products. Nancy B. Beck, a scientist who worked for the chemical industry, saw these efforts as overregulation by the federal government. This is the story of the E.P.A. under President Trump, as told by the shifting powers of two women. Guests: Eric Lipton, a Washington-based correspondent for The Times; Ms. Hamnett, who was the top E.P.A. official overseeing pesticides and toxic chemicals until last month. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is the Daily.
0:09.0	Today, for years, an EPA official fought to protect American consumers from toxic chemicals found in everyday products.
0:19.0	She was opposed by a doctor inside the chemical industry, who saw it as over-regulation by the federal government.
0:27.0	How the shifting powers of these two women tell the story of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Trump.
0:43.0	It's Tuesday, October 24th.
0:46.0	Eric Lippton, you've been investigating the EPA for months. Can you tell me what happened to Kevin Hartley earlier this year?
0:57.0	Kevin Hartley was 21-year-old from Tennessee who was working on stripping a bathtub of its paint surface using a chemical called methylene chloride.
1:09.0	As paint removers go, it's one of the strongest methylene chloride, a chemical with a deadly history.
1:16.0	And while he was using the chemical, he collapses and was overcome by the fumes.
1:21.0	Goes into cardiac arrest and he's found unconscious and unresponsive.
1:26.0	His brother kept his heart pumping until paramedics arrived.
1:29.0	And is rushed to the hospital and is declared dead.
1:32.0	When I received the medical records, Kevin's medical records,
1:36.0	there was a reference in there to methylene chloride. After that, I just kind of started doing my own research to figure out exactly what this chemical is.
1:46.0	It is using a chemical that you can go and buy at basically every home improvement store just about in the United States.
1:53.0	Why is this deadly chemical on the shelves?
1:57.0	It's sold every day and for many, many years, the government and the manufacturer of the product have known that it is not only toxic but potentially deadly and actually dozens of people have died using it.
2:08.0	If it's on the shelf, to me, I feel like it should be safe.
2:12.0	But if this paint remover and this chemical are unsafe, why is it on the market?
2:19.0	It's because the federal government has never decided to take a regulatory action to say that despite the fact that there's a warning label which says that you must ventilate areas in which you use it,
2:29.0	that this chemical is inherently dangerous enough, particularly for consumer applications that it should not be used.
2:35.0	And that is something that the Obama administration on January 19th moved to ban methylene chloride for paint stripping.
	...

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