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SENATOR CLINTON TO INTRODUCE LEGISLATION
TO REINSTATE TASK FORCE ON CHILDREN’S HEALTH

“The devil is in the details.....over the past year it has become increasingly apparent that we must have leadership that demands and secures our regulatory agencies, ACT to protect the health of our family, our children, our environment. Notably , this September 2008, U.S. Senator Clinton introduced legislation: the Children’s Environmental Health and Safety Risk Reduction Act to reinstate an interagency Task Force insuring our ability protect populations at a disproportionate risk from environmental health risks, secure the National Children’s Study is able to continue research with the necessary funding, and implement an interagency review and provide guidance and recommendations to EPA. The following is an excerpt from a recent hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee....
Karen Joy Miller

Senator Assails Administration for Negligence on Children’s Environmental Health

WASHINGTON, DC—In light of new Government accountability Office (GAO) findings that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has neglected children’s health protection during the Bush administration, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton today announced that she will introduce legislation to reinstate an interagency Task Force to recommend federal strategies for protecting children’s health. The Children’s Environmental Health and Safety Risk Reduction Act will codify an Executive Order issued in 1997 which created such a task force. President Bush let the Task Force lapse in 2005.

During a hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Clinton assailed the Bush administration for its negligence on children’s health issues and reiterated her own commitment to protecting children’s health.

“Ten years after the landmark work of the Clinton Administration, this is the state of children’s health protection at the EPA: no leadership, no resources, no initiative, no real mission. It’s a disaster and it’s a disgrace, and we have to fix it,” said Senator Clinton. “We must take steps to galvanize advocates, parents, as well as the EPA itself to take action, and I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate to continue to hold the administration’s feet to the fire and not allow any rollback of environmental protections designed to safeguard children. We need to go forward, not backward, for the health and safety of our children.”

In April 1997, an Executive Order created the interagency Task Force to recommend federal strategies for protecting children. The GAO findings show that since the expiration of the interagency Task Force in 2005, the EPA has lacked a highlevel infrastructure to coordinate federal strategies for children’s environmental health and safety. The GAO also found that the EPA has not proactively used or followed the recommendations of the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee, which was convened to provide advice and recommendations to the EPA in order to assist in developing regulations, guidance, and policies to address children’s health.

Senator Clinton has been a tireless advocate of efforts to protect children’s health. During her time in the Senate, she has introduced multiple bills - including the Family Asthma Act, the Coordinated Environmental Public Health Network Act, the Lead Elimination, Abatement and Poisoning Prevention Act, and the Home Lead Safety Tax Credit Act - to help decrease exposures to the environmental pollutants linked to childhood illness, and expand our understanding of the links between environment and disease. As Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health, she convened the first-ever Senate Hearing on Environmental Justice and is committed to improving the EPA’s ability to protect populations at a disproportionate risk for adverse health impacts from environmental hazards.

Following is a transcript of Senator Clinton’s opening statement and questions to George Gray, Assistant Administrator of the EPA Office of Research and Development, and John B. Stephenson, Director of Natural Resources and Environment for the GAO.

To read the full transcript click on http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm? id=303054&&