PBDEs need to be banned this session

The out of state chemical industry is fighting hard to stop a bill that would eliminate toxic flame retardants (PBDEs). HB 1024 passed the House 71-24 last month and is currently before the state Senate.

If you haven't already, please contact your senator and let him or her know you strongly support this legislation.

Here's a list of the senators who cosponsored SB 5034 earlier - that's the companion bill to the legislation the House passed:

Regala, Eide, Swecker, Weinstein, Franklin, Rasmussen, Brandland, Spanel, Jacobsen, McAuliffe, Poulsen, Keiser, Shin, Pridemore, Fraser, Fairley, Rockefeller, Kline, Kohl-Welles, Tom, Murray, Oemig

If your senator is on that list, you can also thank them for going on the record in support of a cleaner, healthier Washington.

The Seattle P-I had an outstanding front page article on the dangers of PBDEs this morning - another fine report from journalist Lisa Stiffler. It's a must read if you're looking for background on this issue.

Josh Feit looked over the list of exceptions in the bill last week, noticed that many of them exempted Boeing from the ban, and complained about "retarded corporate Democrats" in a post on SLOG last week. I asked the Washington Toxics Coalition about the exceptions and received this response:

We wanted to focus on the highest uses of deca and preventing new uses in the home environment where children crawl around in the dust.

Children are receiving up to 300 times the level of exposure to PBDEs relative to adults, primarily from exposure from breast milk ingestion and inadvertent dust ingestion. Television casings are the largest use of deca.
While there is some deca that has been used in mattresses and furniture, we are trying to prevent a significant new use here.

New federal standards (mattresses) identify deca as a way to comply and similar standards for furniture are on the way. In addition, we wanted to focus on product areas where safer, effective alternatives were already in use and available due to the concerns about fire safety.

Also, I discovered that reformulating alternatives that meets the FAA's guidelines is not something that is easily accomplished - hence the exemptions for aircraft and for Boeing.

It's not about giving one of the biggest companies in the state a free pass. Boeing says it is working with suppliers to "identify and test potential solutions" that would allow it to replace deca-BDE.

So enough with the "retarded corporate Democrats" nonsense. This bill would make a real difference. Surely even Josh Feit can agree that making some progress is better than doing nothing. This bill isn't out of the woods yet, though, so don't wait to let your state senator know that SHB 1024 must be passed this session.

And check out these pictures of Washingtonians who want to be PBDE free.