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 high-level 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.

Senator Clinton: Thank you so much, Chairman Boxer, and thank you for your lifetime commitment, really, to the health and well-being of our children.

This is such an important hearing because obviously many of us believe strongly that there are direct links between environmental contaminants, pollution, stresses, and our children’s health. And we thought we were on the right track in our country and our government in focusing on these concerns, and we learn unfortunately but not unexpectedly that the Bush Administration has basically undermined much of what we were trying to accomplish.

Now for me, this is a very significant finding that the GAO has presented in its report. It reveals a systematic failure to prioritize children’s health in the Bush Administration. And the specifics of this are unfortunately clear for all to see. The Bush Administration disbanded a critical interagency Task Force in our government that was focused on bringing agencies together to protect children’s health against threats in the environment. While disbanding the group that spearheaded the major children’s health reforms of the past decade, it ignored its own panel of experts, disregarded recommendations to ensure our children have access to clean air and water, safe homes, safe schools, and healthy food.

It is time to sound the alarm. This cannot be permitted to continue. More than 40 years ago, Rachel Carson wrote, “For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals from the moment of conception until death.” Environmental contamination and pollution presents an insidious threat to children’s health—a silent, but ever present factor in childhood asthma, cancer rates, and other serious health problems.

Cancer rates, asthma, people think, “Well what does this have to do with the environment?” Well, asthma rates have more than doubled since 1985. The CDC estimates that more than 300,000 children currently have elevated levels of lead in their blood. We know that children living near very obvious sites of pollution have other serious diseases, including cancer, at a higher than expected rate.

We cannot allow this to continue.

In the Clinton Administration, more than a decade ago, we issued an Executive Order on the protection of children from environmental health risks and safety risks. The EPA established the office of Children’s Health Protection and created the Children’s Health [Protection] Advisory Committee. That was an important set of decisions and represented a milestone in making sure we did not ignore the scientific evidence and linkage between environmental exposure and children’s health adverse effects.

These actions helped make schools safer for kids and helped reduce pesticide exposure and focused attention on the growing asthma epidemic and expanded lead poisoning prevention. The Task Force established under the Executive Order was instrumental in the creation of the landmark National Children’s Study, a long-term effort that will help us better understand the links between chronic disease and the environment.

So it defies common sense that the Bush Administration quietly disbanded the taskforce in 2005, undercut the Children’s Health Protection Office, and failed to follow through on the Clinton administration’s efforts on children’s health.

I mean, this would be laughable if it weren’t so serious.

In 2002, EPA made the Office of Children’s Health Protection responsible for the Aging Initiative, focused on issues facing seniors—equally important, but undermining the mission of that office and doing so despite recommendations to the contrary by the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee. Later the Office of Children’s Health, having incorporating aging issues, was combined with the Office on Environmental Education. And until recently, the administration refused to appoint anyone to actually be the director of the office, essentially and purposefully leaving it rudderless.

So it’s time we restored the mission of this office, the function of the interagency Task Force, and the spirit of the orders issued by Clinton Administration.

Today I will be introducing the Children’s Environmental Health and Safety Risk Reduction Act, which will once again ensure that we have the entire Federal Government working together to protect the health of our children.

The Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee made seven recommendations for actions EPA should take to recommit the agency to children’s health. I echoed those findings in a letter to Administrator Johnson, asking him to take action. He responded that he would ask the Office of Children’s Health to review the recommendations. But according to the GAO, no progress had been made more than a year after the initial promise of a review by Administrator Johnson. It’s no wonder he wouldn’t come to testify today.

Ten years after the landmark Executive Order, 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 intend to fix it.

I hope today’s hearing will galvanize advocates, parents, as well as the EPA itself to take action, and I look forward to continuing to work with our Chairman and other colleagues to try to push forward an agenda that will protect our children.

Now there is so much to be talked about here that it’s almost hard to know where to start. But let me begin, Mr. Stevenson. Your testimony notes that if the interagency Task Force created by President Clinton’s Executive Order 13045 were still in existence, it could have helped address the multiple toy recalls last year. Could you please elaborate on the importance of that task force and the ways it contributes to children’s health protection?

Mr. Stevenson: That’s of course hypothetical, but nevertheless, without the interagency Task Force, you don’t have Housing and Urban Development working with the EPA. You simply don’t have a high level infrastructure with which to coordinate federal programs. Even in the EPA’s annual Operating Plan for FY 2009, it recognizes the importance of the Task Force and its contribution to removing lead, and that was just in this year’s plan even though the Task Force was disbanded over three years ago.

Senator Clinton: Mr. Gray, or Dr. Gray, can you explain why the President chose to disband the Task Force?

Dr. Gray: Well Senator, I think it’s important to realize that there is high level coordination in the Federal Government; it’s been focused for the last several years on the National Children’s Study, which was an outgrowth of the Task Force.

Senator Clinton: Well isn’t it true that in the President’s Budget of the last several years, it was recommended to cut the funding for the National Children’s Study?

Dr. Gray: The funding for the National Children’s Study has continued—there are recommendations for cuts, but that is an effort to make sure that we have just the resources we need to the highest priority work. That high priority work comes from interagency process that’s co-chaired by the EPA. And it also involves an ongoing consortium that coordinates between all of the federal agencies, including Housing and Urban Development, who are concentrated on children’s affairs. So there is coordination.

Senator Clinton: Well it’s somewhat confusing to follow your testimony because the fact is that President Bush had sought to zero out the National Children’s Study in his budgets, and it’s interesting that your testimony touts programs spearheaded by the Task Force such as the National Children’s Study. So it’s very difficult to understand exactly what the priorities of this administration are when it comes to children’s health. And I don’t hold you responsible. You’re here representing the EPA, but unfortunately the bottom line is that actions speak louder than words, and the efforts to zero out the funding, to disband the task force I think speaks volumes about what we can expect from this administration, thankfully not for very much longer.

Dr. Gray, in June 2007 Administrator Johnson promised to implement an interagency review of the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee regarding a renewed focus on children’s health. In a letter I sent to him in October 2007, I asked for a timeline. In December 2007, I was told that there were preliminary discussions and we would be hearing something soon. It’s been roughly ten months since that response. What progress has been made in reviewing these recommendations, and what is the timeline for the completion of that review?

Dr. Gray: Well thank you for an opportunity to make clear that in fact the agency is working to understand and to consider those recommendations that came from the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee. There have been conversations between, at the time, the acting head of the Office of Children’s Protection, and a variety of the program offices. There are staff-level collaborations that are going on. There has been a change, as was mentioned. We have a permanent head of the Office of Children’s Health Protection and as that person has the opportunity to get settled and organize things, we will be moving forward. I can’t give you a timeline right now, but I would be happy to get back to you with a timeline.

Senator Clinton: Well, the timeline is that nothing has happened. And just to follow up quickly, Mr. Stevenson, what progress has EPA made in reviewing the recommendations of the tenth anniversary letter since December 2007?

Mr. Stevenson: Well, really, none. There is a new director of the Children’s Health Office, that’s true. But under the acting director they had actually established task groups to work on the recommendations, and those were pretty much disbanded by the current director when she took office. And I know she’s held meetings with each of the program offices and so forth, but there’s really been nothing concrete that’s come out of that to my knowledge.

Senator Clinton: Thank you.

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