AUGUSTA – Gov. Paul LePage’s proposed repeal of Maine’s efforts to restrict bisphenol A, a chemical that state health agencies concluded poses a health risk to babies, will likely test his ability to pass controversial measures, though Republicans control the Legislature.

The proposal, submitted as part of the Republican’s regulatory reform package, has generated criticism from the public — even before the governor made national headlines for saying that the worst-case impact of the endocrine-disrupting chemical would result in some women getting “little beards.”

No state senators and only nine state representatives opposed the 2008 passage of the BPA regulations, which were part of a law known as the Kid-Safe Products Act (L.D. 2048). The law set up a process for the Department of Environmental Protection and the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention to identify “priority chemicals,” based on sufficient scientific evidence that they exposed children to health risks.

“The intent was to, like bisphenol A, look for and identify certain types of chemicals that were the lead ones that we might know wouldn’t be safe and to try to remove them out of products,” said state Rep. Dana Dow, R-Waldoboro.

Dow, along with then-state Rep. Hannah Pingree, D-North Haven, participated in a study that tested what chemicals were found in their bodies. The results surprised both, and the two lawmakers, along with several others, co-sponsored legislation that became the Kid-Safe Products Act.

BAN WOULD AFFECT CUPS, BOTTLES

BPA and nonylphenol were the first two — and so far, the only — chemicals identified by the state agencies as being dangerous enough to warrant regulation.

Both the DEP and Maine CDC were required to review available scientific evidence and agree on which chemicals should be regulated. As well, the Board of Environmental Protection had to hold public hearings on the proposals. The BEP, a 10-member, unpaid citizen board of gubernatorial appointees, also issued the final rules regulating the identified chemicals.

Finally, the Legislature must approve any recommendations for regulations — such as the proposed ban on BPA in sippy cups and bottles — that are considered to be substantive rule changes. As such, lawmakers will vote on the BPA ban legislation (L.D. 412) later this session.

LePage’s initial proposal for regulatory reforms, one of his priorities as governor to make Maine more business-friendly, included the recommendation to “repeal BPA rule and rely on federal EPA and FDA standards.”

A subsequent list of proposals presented to the legislative panel charged with writing the legislation did not contain the BPA rule repeal. But when asked at a recent news conference if that meant he was backing off, Le-Page said no.

“Why? Until I see science that tells me BPA is a problem — and I haven’t seen it, quite frankly — the science that I’m looking at says there’s not been any science identifying that there’s a problem,” he said. “The only thing that I’ve heard is if you take a plastic bottle and you put it in a microwave and then heat it up, it gives off a chemical that’s similar to estrogen.”

GOP LEADER BACKS REVIEW PROCESS

But Republican lawmakers as well as advocacy groups argue that there’s plenty of science indicating real risks posed to infants by BPA.

“I think we are going to try to see if we can just pull that completely out of any consideration so it won’t go any further,” said Dow, referring to LePage’s BPA repeal proposal.

All three Senate Republican leaders were in the Senate during the 2008 unanimous vote on the Kid-Safe Product legislation, and Senate Majority Leader Jon Courtney, R-Sanford, said he still supports the process established by the measure.

“It was a pretty strong 35-to-nothing report in the Senate, so I think that speaks for itself,” he said. “I don’t think people are going to backtrack unless there’s a legitimate scientific reason why we need to look differently.

“I think we certainly supported this ban when it came in and I think that we’ll certainly take a look at it, but I think there was pretty strong support for the law.”

Other provisions of the BPA rule changes that were established last year have already taken effect. One requires manufacturers of toys that contain intentionally added BPA to disclose that information to the state — something that has been met with strong resistance from the Toy Industry Association, a national trade group for toy manufacturers.

“What it really boils down to is trying to find a reasonable rule that’s implementable and doesn’t put small companies out of business with having to test and test and test to document that they are in compliance with the law,” said Andy Hackman, a spokesman for the trade group.

Hackman said his group — which represents about 30 toy makers in Maine — is seeking reforms to the law, not complete repeal. “Despite some of the perception out there, we have not sought for a wholesale rollback of the BPA rule,” he said.

DEMERITT: NO CONSENSUS ON BPA

Mike Belliveau, executive director of the Environmental Health Strategy Center, a nonprofit group that works to promote safe chemicals, said it’s ridiculous for LePage to say he hasn’t seen science condemning BPA.

“If the governor puts on a blindfold, he’s not going to see anything — so if he refuses to look at the science that Maine’s toxicologists have reviewed or the science the United States government has reviewed, he’s not going to see the hundreds of studies that show that BPA causes adverse effects at the same levels that babies are being exposed to today,” he said.

Belliveau was also critical of an e-mail circulated last week by Dan Demeritt, LePage’s spokesman, with the subject line, “World agrees with Gov. LePage on BPA.”

The email contained links to studies conducted by  the World Health Organization and by the European Food Safety Authority, and highlighted by the Statistical Assessment Service

The Washington, D.C.-based Statistical Assessment Service, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, has been affiliated with George Mason University since 2004. The group does not disclose funding sources, but claims on its website not to take money from industry or industry-related groups.

Major donors to GMU, however, include Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and Searle Freedom Trust, both of which spend millions annually supporting right-wing ideological interests, according to SourceWatch, a Wikipedia-like website devoted to exposing front groups “trying to manipulate public opinion on behalf of corporations or government.”

“It’s part of an actual, deliberate strategy by the chemical manufacturers to … manufacture doubt,” Belliveau said.

Tobacco companies funded studies, he said, just like the chemical industry has done on BPA, so they could use them to sway public opinion.

Demeritt said the reports were evidence of a lack of scientific consensus on the effects of BPA.

“Before reporting that the entire scientific community supports a ban, please look at these reports from the World Health Organization and the European Food Safety Authority,” Demeritt wrote in the e-mail.

Pingree, the former House speaker, said she’s optimistic that the BPA rules will withstand the scrutiny.

“I got the sense that … that legislators on both sides of the aisle, when they really heard the facts that this is targeted toward only these baby products and that we’d be the ninth state at least to do this, it might be more of a no-brainer than is being portrayed,” she said.

“I don’t know why the governor is picking such a fight on this because it seems like a good, slam-dunk, common-sense issue for both parties.”

MaineToday Media State House Writer Rebekah Metzler can be contacted at 620-7016 or at:

rmetzler@mainetoday.com

 

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