Toxic Chemicals, Clean Water & the Law Protecting You ft. Sarah Vogel

There's a federal law that's supposed to protect you from toxic chemicals in your baby bottles, your carpet, your drinking water, and your kid's toys. Most people have never heard of it — and right now, some lawmakers are trying to quietly weaken it. In this episode, Corey sits down with Sarah Vogel, Senior Vice President for Healthy Communities at the Environmental Defense Fund, to break down the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA): how it went from a "dog that never barked" to a bipartisan reform ten years ago, why Black and brown communities carry the heaviest burden of chemical exposure, and what's actually at stake if these protections get rolled back. Sarah also shares real, practical steps you can take at home — no chemistry degree required.

This episode is brought to you by Goodfeed. 

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In this episode:

• What TSCA is, why it was passed in 1976, and why it barely worked for 40 years
• The 2016 bipartisan reform that finally gave the EPA real authority to review chemicals
• Why cost can't be part of the "is this safe" conversation — but can factor into "how do we manage the risk"
• Why Black and brown communities are disproportionately exposed to industrial pollution and toxic waste, and how redlining is directly tied to that
• What's being proposed right now that could quietly gut these protections again
• Why "regulation kills innovation" doesn't hold up — and what strong rules actually do for public health and industry
• Simple, low-cost things you can do today: testing for lead, skipping fragranced products, avoiding plastic in the microwave, washing your hands after cleaning

Resources mentioned:

• Learn more about TSCA: edf.org/tsca
• Check your exposure risk by zip code: chemicalactionmap.edf.org

Connect with Sarah Vogel and the Environmental Defense Fund at edf.org.

This episode is brought to you by Goodfeed — goodfeed.co.

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Creators and Guests

Host

Corey Dion Lewis

Founder, Healthy Project Media

What is The Healthy Project Podcast?

The Healthy Project Podcast explores the powerful intersection of health, society, and equity through real conversations with changemakers on the front lines of social impact. Each episode features thought leaders, researchers, and advocates who unpack how social structures — from policy to culture — shape the health of communities.

Topics we explore include:
Health equity and structural determinants
Community-driven research and innovation
Lived experiences of marginalized populations
Public policy, systemic bias, and health outcomes

Whether you're a public health professional, social science researcher, policymaker, or community advocate, this podcast brings you grounded insights, bold ideas, and practical tools to drive change where it matters most.

Corey Dion Lewis (00:01.196)
Hello, everybody. Thank you for listening to the Healthy Project Podcast. I'm your host, Corey Deon Lewis. And today I have Sarah Vogel with me. She is the senior vice president for healthy communities at the Environmental Defense Fund. And we are about to get into a conversation that I think is very valuable, and not only for those that are in public health spaces, but just people in general, anybody. We're talking about the chemicals in your everyday products, your home.

your kids' stuff and the federal law that's supposed to protect you from them. it's been 10 years since the law got a major overhaul. And right now there are people trying to change it. Sarah has been in this fight for a very long time and I'm glad she is here to walk us through it. So Sarah, welcome to the Healthy Project podcast.

Sarah Vogel (00:51.481)
Thank you for having Corey.

Corey Dion Lewis (00:53.484)
Yes. So you have a PhD from Columbia, degrees from Yale in public health and environmental management. not no stranger to this work and been doing this for a very long time. what pulled you towards this work specifically and was there a moment or experience that made it personal for you?

Sarah Vogel (01:07.215)
Okay.

Sarah Vogel (01:16.355)
Yeah, so I've been in in a long time. You're making me feel really old, but I am. It's been a long time and it's kind of amazing that we're at a milestone now. But you know, really going back to when I was a kid, I was just drawn to nature. I I that's where I found that was my happy place. I loved being outdoors.

Corey Dion Lewis (01:21.186)
No.

Sarah Vogel (01:39.715)
I loved trees, I loved hiking. I I got to spend some of my childhood in the on the front range out in Colorado and it was just magnificent. and so I I had this affiliation or affinity to to the natural world. And then there was other this other part of me that was quite kind of political, if you will. And I I think early on when I would see the destruction of natural spaces, I would get very impassioned and

Tried to protect like a tree from being torn down in our neighborhood with the neighborhood kids when I was really little. and then in my early 20s, so I studied environmental policy in college, but then in my early 20s, I got introduced to this emerging field of science that was looking at how the chemicals that are used in in all around us in plastics and furniture and

Corey Dion Lewis (02:13.335)
Yeah.

Sarah Vogel (02:38.332)
carpeting and personal care products, how they were interacting with our bodies and having impacts on our health. And it really blew my mind in many ways, because it was really the how the environment literally would impact our health. And I just I got just enthralled by that. And can that's where a lot of the work I did with those degrees came around.

but I was really interested in this question of why? Why have we allowed that to happen? How is it that these chemicals have come into into our bodies and into our world, you know, the important things that they've done, but how is it that we haven't fully tackled this issue of of what they're doing to our health? And and I ended up writing a whole book about it, where I looked at one chemical in particular that some people may have heard about before called bisphenol A or BPA.

Corey Dion Lewis (03:35.042)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Vogel (03:35.44)
And it was right when it a lot of folks were very concerned that it was in the plastics used primarily in baby bottles. And it was a what's called an endocrine disruptor. and so I talked about kind of how this chemical came to be and the battles over how it has changed our lives and and literally our bodies. So that that's that's the short version of my my journey to this space.

Corey Dion Lewis (03:59.66)
No, I love it. And y you said something, you know, this is interesting about, you know, all what it makes me think, and correct me if I'm wrong, there's there's only so much as a consumer that I know that goes into something, but there's but you and you have, you know, this team that is leading this this pathway, these you know, attorneys and s and scientists and all these experts. what does it on the back end?

You know, what does protecting health from toxic chemicals actually look like on a day to day? Like the things that me that just goes and grabs it from the store has no idea like what what that what it takes.

Sarah Vogel (04:43.011)
Yeah, yeah. No, it there there's a there's a lot of work trying to to change change this this problem, this system. And my organization and many others have been working for a long time on this. It when it comes to the environmental defense fund or EDF where I'm at, you know, I think we take a lot of pride in the fact that we are we are being

public servants, right? We are working to protect these public goods, right? The water that you drink, the air that you breathe, the products you bring into your home. because we firmly believe that you shouldn't, you, you as an individual, have enough to worry about, that you shouldn't actually have to have a PhD or a, you know, degree in toxicology or, you know, be able to decipher all, you know, what this all means. You shouldn't have to do that in order to turn on the tap or go

Buy a product, right? And so a lot of the work that we do is focused on how do we solve this problem. One of the reasons I've I've stayed at EDF and I've I've loved working here is that we're committed to to finding solutions, not just talking about the problem, but how do we build solutions? And when you when you kind of come at the issue that way, it means you have to bring a lot of different people together. It means you have to talk to, you know, cr differ people.

Who may be far outside you know, your your sort of domain of interest or whatever. So we're we will often bring folks in the private sector together with community-based organizations, with different governments. Like, how do we all come together? P you know, public health officials, nurses, doctors, how how can we collectively build enough momentum to solve for some of these big problems? So for example, years ago when I

Corey Dion Lewis (06:13.549)
Right.

Sarah Vogel (06:35.853)
First came to EDF, we we worked with the retailer Walmart that you know, really behind the scenes to help them develop what was a voluntary policy to address chemicals of concern in their supply chain. That's a huge retailer having enormous impact and and and it really became an industry standard. And then when it comes to the rules that the government would will be issuing around different

chemicals and guidance. We're this is the stuff that's really behind the scenes, right? We and many others are evaluating those for their scientific integrity. Are they following the laws we intended? Are they protecting the public? And if they're not, we're commenting on that. And and then if the if rules continue to move forward and we think it's a problem, we'll challenge them in the courts. That's been a big piece of using the the legal system

to make sure that our laws are working as intended, that we're bringing the best science. And then we do we do work to ask scientific questions that we feel like aren't being addressed. So that's another, you know, so again working collaboratively with academics and and and community-based organizations to to say what are the questions that we actually want to ask and and really a a really important one is how do we understand not just

We know we're not just exposed to one of these chemicals at a time or one air pollutant at a time. It's the whole real world exposure. So we've been pushing the science in that space. How do we understand what the real world ex risks are, particularly to communities that are bearing heavy burdens of pollution and toxic exposure? So it's a it's a real mix. That's why you know we have attorneys, we have scientists, we have advocates and communication specialists all working together.

to and and then bringing, you know, many different people in to this conversation to to to what we say is to find the ways that work to to to make it so that we can breathe the air and we can drink our water and and buy products without undermining our health.

Corey Dion Lewis (08:51.113)
Yeah, you you bring up water and I don't want to go off on a too much of a side rail here, but I'm I am in Iowa and the Iowa's water quality right now is a serious public health and environmental issue. and it's driven mostly by like the nitrates and the and the phosphorus and the runoff from agricultural areas. And it it is something where a lot of people are asking the questions like, what is going on?

Sarah Vogel (08:56.428)
Mm-hmm.

Corey Dion Lewis (09:19.757)
And you know, when you don't start when you don't get the answers and you're like, well, we're still drinking this water, or like some people don't have access to to test or buy to buy the things to like have safe drinking water. It's it is nice to know that there may be people on the back on the on the back end doing some heavy lifting to get those answers. And it I think it's important that people who don't know, they're just frustrated.

to know like hey there are people trying to do something to make sure that the water you're drinking and bathing in and feeding your children you know you know giving your children is safe.

Sarah Vogel (09:59.628)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean I as as you know and you've you've said quite eloquently, like when you lose the trust or confidence that the water you're drinking w is it's very it's very disturbing. I I we've found even just in surveys that that's something that people really

believe that there's a role for the government to play in making sure like it's a it's a right. You know, you feel like you should have a right to be able to drink clean water. And and I think you know, some of the work that we've we've done in the water space often brings together, you know, those water utilities who are you know responsible for delivering clean water. And they then they've got upstream issues, whether it's

It's the nitrates from the runoff, or it's PFAS chemicals, which are these we can get into later, these forever chemicals that are are contaminating a lot of drinking water. you know, ha we've been working to how do you bring those folks all together to figure out, okay, what needs to be done? And it's really important that those who are impacted, people who are tur

th they need to be telling those stories because that's the other thing that we rely on a lot and we can also come back to this is we really rely on working with everyday folks who are saying this is a problem, this is coming up in my community and and I want I want my voice to be heard. that that's what makes advocacy function in this country is is is that it's still it still remains to be a fairly democratic process.

Corey Dion Lewis (11:43.861)
Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I thank you for acknowledging my little side my my side rant. let's start. Yeah.

Sarah Vogel (11:49.272)
Yeah, it's a real it's a serious problem. We could have a whole nother conversation on that one because it is a big, big problem. Okay.

Corey Dion Lewis (11:55.82)
Yeah, that's a that's a part two and three, maybe. You know, that's that's a whole different conversation. let's start from the ground up. You know, the the Toxic Substance Con Substances Control Act. what is it and why did it need reforming in the first place?

Sarah Vogel (12:12.183)
Yeah, so the Toxic Substances Control Act, we can call it Tosca, even though it sort of sounds like an Italian restaurant. but we have what we call it Tosca. so we have to go back, do a little bit of history, which is that it was originally passed in 1976, signed into law by Gerald Ford. and that was at the tail end really of of you know

Corey Dion Lewis (12:19.885)
Yeah.

Sarah Vogel (12:40.685)
But really a decade of moment political momentum, you know, around the it within the environmental movement, the establishment of the environmental protection agency, the passage of the Clean Air Act, just really groundbreaking environmental statutes. And and it took that, you know, it was it was long in the making because we had had over a decade of just severe pollution, right? Cities choked with air pollution, rivers on

fire, right? I mean, it's I think it's good, especially for younger listeners, to remember just how bad the the visible pollution was at that time. As early as, you know, and I had documented earl, you know, in the 50s, there were public real public concerns about the proliferation of chemicals in the in their environment. Of course, pesticides being sprayed in neighborhoods. Actually EDF

got its start around the helping to secure the the ban on DDT. There were plastics coming into our kitchens and our and our grocery stores. there was this great quote in an article in the Washington Post in 1972 where the reporter wrote, We're all little plastic now. And it was it was about a a paper that had looked at chemicals used in plastic showing up in in human human blood.

So there was it was in the zeitgeist, if you will, right? And so there's a mounting pressure to pass Tosca. And Tosca, in some ways, was this umbrella statute in that some chemicals were dealt with in different environmental statutes, but there were a lot of gaps. You know, pesticides are dealt with separately. chemicals that end up in your food or that you put on your body, like personal care products, they're regulated by a different statute by FDA.

But that left t tens of thousands of chemicals. So tosco is passed to deal with those chemicals from across the whole life cycle, from production use all the way to disposal. So, but it was turned out to be a pretty ineffective statute, sadly enough. we at the time for many years called it the dog that never barked. It just it was a dead letter law. It just it really

Sarah Vogel (15:07.215)
And and there were a number of problems with it. and I won't go through everything, but some really important pieces of of the problem was that it created first of all, it grandfathered in tens of thousands of chemicals, just presumed safe, with very little evidence. So that's a problem. And then it put the burden on EPA to demonstrate that a chemical was harmful, but it didn't provide them with any.

information. So it created this like catch 22. It had a very high burden of proof and no ability to actually to to demonstrate that. The other just two other kind of important pieces was that cost was integrated into what what that safety standard for a chemical would be. And that made it also really hard for the agency to take action and this became evident

When EPA attempted to ban asbestos, which was well known to cause serious lung disease, and there had been many efforts to get it out of different uses. And so they they proposed a ban or they finalized a ban in 1989, and the and the Circuit Court of Appeals in the in the Fifth Circuit struck it down in 1991 and said that they had not basically determined that that.

They had found the what was called the least burdensome approach to managing asbestos risk. So again, the bar was just way too high. And this putting cost into determining the safety standard we saw is really inappropriate. And then for the hundreds of chemicals that come onto the market every year, they what there was like no, they weren't subject to really like any safety review. So you can think about how all

how all these chemicals were coming onto the market. So it was it was very badly, very badly broken.

Corey Dion Lewis (17:10.333)
Mm. And in ten years ago, Congress passed bipartisan reforms to this law. And and that's rare. You know, what made that moment possible and what did those reforms actually change for everyday people?

Sarah Vogel (17:26.199)
Yeah, so the reforms were very long in the making. so you know, if you had this important court decision in 1991, by the late 90s, my organization, I wasn't there at the time, did an extensive kind of review of the law, pointing out all its flaws, and then began to outline areas of what was needed in reform. And at the same time, you had

A growing number of groups at the state level and community groups beginning to take action. Okay, if the federal government is not going to be able to deal with some of these chemicals, we're going to start introducing restrictions and bans at the state level. And California, like in many things, was a big leader in this, but so was the state of Washington and New York. There were many more states getting on board. The California passed a pretty extensive Safe Products Act.

The EU, European Union passed a really comprehensive new chemical law in 2006 called REACH. That became a model for other countries. So the international landscape was changing. And then you had consumer product companies and retailers like Walmart, including the work that I just mentioned, that you know, we had, we really pushed them to urge them and work with them to create this policy that came out in 2013.

they started a lot of companies were starting to set their own voluntary efforts to move high-risk chemicals out of the supply chain. So there was a lot of activity going on, if you will, in the market. And if you're a chemical producer and you suddenly have all these different state requirements, you've got a different requirement for the EU market, maybe the South Korean market, it it's it's getting not a it's getting complicated.

Corey Dion Lewis (19:05.781)
Mm.

Sarah Vogel (19:21.057)
And so there were increasing interests for the chemical industry to come to the table on reforms. And that was noticeable notable because there had been bills to reform Tosca introduced as early as 2005. So, and almost every year for years and years and years, in part led by the late Senator Frank Lautenberg from New Jersey, whose father had been.

Corey Dion Lewis (19:40.011)
Hmm.

Sarah Vogel (19:49.472)
significantly impacted by the chemical industry. He was just driving this forward over and over, but it was always partisan. And not long before he died, he was able to cut a deal and really get the first bipartisan bill introduced. And then even after that it was years and years of pushing and negotiating. But the law did pass with enormous bipartisan support.

and it was signed into law by President Obama 10 years ago, just on June 22nd. But it so today it's you know, it took a long time. And I think that's important to recognize that well, first that major legislation takes a while to pass, but we're also really concerned about the speed at which some folks in Congress are trying to make.

Corey Dion Lewis (20:27.349)
Wow.

Sarah Vogel (20:47.225)
pretty significant changes to it without that same amount of dialogue and engagement about what what changes might be needed to open up an entire statute is a is a really big deal.

Corey Dion Lewis (21:01.357)
so it took it took a long time to even get to where we're at and now things are trying they're trying to change things faster, maybe not with a lot of thought, I guess, into it or a lot of pushback.

Sarah Vogel (21:07.513)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll say that the the the law in 2016 made, you know, like with anything, when you take that long and you're trying to get a law passed out of any Congress, but it was hard enough then to do something bipartisan 10 years ago. I mean, you know, it's it's only gotten more partisan, but there were some significant improvements made to that law. So

You think about some of the points I made about how it was broken. The the law in 2016, it mandated that EPA review what were called existing chemicals. So all those chemicals that were just presumed to be fine. Now EPA had a mandate to review them and basically a pipeline to be reviewing these.

And the environment, they can't consider cost in that evaluation. They consider cost when they're trying to determine. So if a chemical does present an unreasonable risk, then it goes on to another phase where, okay, how should we manage that risk? Then you can start to consider cost, but not when you're thinking about is it safe? And the other important piece was that their EPA was told to take into account vulnerable.

Sarah Vogel (22:40.641)
individuals and communities when they determine that. That was really significant step as well. It also created a mandate for EPA to review those new chemicals that are coming onto the market all the time as well. And so those were those were significant shifts and the law has been working. I mean it's it's clunky and it's hard.

But there have been restrictions of dangerous substances, asbestos, methylene chloride, trichloroethylene, which is a is a nasty solvent. and and then there's been restrictions on on new chemicals that people you know won't even hear about that it's happening more quietly. and so I think that's the frustrating part about seeing a big, a big

push to to try to undermine some of the improvements that were so hard fought ten years ago.

Corey Dion Lewis (23:41.995)
Right, because you're seeing that it's saving lives. And to see something kind of poke that and push that, that's saving lives, I'm sure that is frustrating.

Sarah Vogel (23:46.381)
Yeah.

Sarah Vogel (23:53.08)
Yeah, yeah. I mean methylene chloride kills has killed people, a lot of people. so the the finally getting that ban was a was a really big deal. And and trichloroethylene is is a really nasty solvent, asbestos. so and there's a whole suite of chemicals going under review, dozens and dozens of them. And so yeah, it and and you know, we've seen over the past couple of years under this current administration an effort

Corey Dion Lewis (24:11.618)
Right.

Sarah Vogel (24:23.599)
through the administration, through the EPA, to really weaken the rules that are coming out in ways that we don't think follow the statute and so are unlawful and don't follow the science. And what we're s what we're seeing is that there's an effort to almost codify what's happening at EPA within the law. And that would have, you know, lasting damage far beyond this administration.

Corey Dion Lewis (24:50.421)
Right, right, man. And so, you know, I wanna I wanna touch on something you said earlier about like your your work. this your work is really centered on communities. And what what I would like to, you know, kind of would love for you to go into is who is carrying kind of the the heaviest burden when it comes to chemical exposure and and why is that?

Sarah Vogel (25:13.239)
Yeah. Well, so there is ample evidence, thanks in large part to decades and decades of work and leadership by the environmental justice community to document the disproportionate exposures and impacts of of toxic emissions in black and brown communities. so you've got people of color nearly twice as likely to live near an industrial site.

More than half of people living within a couple miles of toxic waste sites are people of color. So you you have the proliferation of industrial sites proposed and built near communities. Some of these same communities are often facing higher exposure to air pollution, so they may be close to other polluting facilities, highways, elevated highways, and

that's not just like a random, you know, occurrence. that, and once again, this has all been very well documented. That is that is the impact in large part from redlining. So, you know, redlining of course refers to this systematic denial of services like mortgages, insurance, loans to residents in certain areas because of their

racial or ethnic makeup of the neighborhoods had nothing to do with financial risk, right? And and the term comes from the federal government, you know, actually created color-coded maps to assess neighborhood investment risk. And so that depreciated those property values. And you know, with cheap land come landfills, industrial sites, right, highway construction.

on top of you know repressed access to political power to to to to fight back. So you do have decades of that. I think probably many people will have heard of this the 80 mile stretch of land between New Orleans and Baton Rouge in Louisiana, that's home to more than 150 petrochemical facilities and refineries just back to back within historic black communities.

Sarah Vogel (27:39.432)
And the cancer risks in these communities are the highest in the country. and it has been given, you know, the name of Cancer Alley and and just incredibly high cancer rates. and then you know, you have smaller rural and small communities across the country that are living near rail lines. I think you know, the the the

Corey Dion Lewis (27:44.503)
Yeah.

Corey Dion Lewis (27:48.61)
Yeah.

Sarah Vogel (28:04.515)
the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, where you had vinyl chloride admitted, it heavily contaminated that community. And then you've got communities all over the country that have reported high levels of PFAS in their chemical in their drinking water, other hazardous substances in the air. So then you you know you it it you have it can you know concentrated in some communities, but then you actually have dense

distribution as well, and particularly in communities where the that it's cheaper to put these facilities. the other kind of community of of folks that we're concerned about in terms of impact are workers, right? And so workers maybe using you know

solvents, clean heavy duty cleaning materials, right? Paints, glues, adhesives, and some of those same workers then maybe going back and living in communities that are also highly polluted, right? So you're you're seeing that in you know cumulative impact, right? So, or you're working in a nail salon and you're and so and then and then the other kind of group of of of people that we're also concerned about in their terms and their vulnerabilities are

Corey Dion Lewis (29:13.517)
Right. Just constantly just

Sarah Vogel (29:29.453)
are children's infants and pregnant women. And so in general, because you're you're more vulnerable when you're when you're small and you're developing. And then obviously if you're a an infant or a pregnant woman, then also living in an area with more high levels of pollution, you're gonna be even at higher risk. so it you know it comes around to this fact of this isn't just you're exposed to one chemical and how do we assess the risk, which by the way is

a sort of an outdated way of how we do it. But when you start thinking about how are people really exposed and who's more heavily impacted and how do we then make ensure that those folks are protected when we're issuing a rule. And we really believe that that Tosca mandated EPA to do that. And there is a big effort to really undermine that approach right now.

Corey Dion Lewis (30:27.937)
Yeah, man, that that is that's just it's just sad because you know you you think about the, you know, those under resourced or underserved you know, communities that they they know the problems, but they they don't have the resources for a solution. So it's it's almost like, what am I supposed to do? And that's why, you know, that's why I was excited for you to be on the show, because to let people know there are there are things that are happening.

And there are ways that you you could you can have your voice be, you know, be heard. You know, I mean I'll make sure that I have some of those things in the links of this episode. but like it's it is a man, Sarah, it's a weird time. Like it's just a weird time for some of these these things going on. it's hard to put it all into words. Yeah, you know, right right now. Sorry, go ahead. I didn't mean to cut you off.

Sarah Vogel (31:13.238)
I know.

Sarah Vogel (31:18.871)
Yeah, yeah, I know.

Sarah Vogel (31:25.133)
No, no, no. It it is it is a weird time. And I and I'll just I don't know if the I just wanted to say that it can feel really overwhelming. and we know this like when we talk about chemicals and people go like, my God, so like everything around me is killing me. Like what I I I can't do, you know, I can't do anything about like I I've got other I've got other things to worry about. And I think the message that we try to send is

What I started with earlier, one is no, you shouldn't have to, right? This is the role for an independent government doing its job, using science, and the best way to protect you. And guess what? By the way, when we survey most Americans, like this is this is a shared value. It is not partisan. People really b want the government to be doing that. And they don't want to see big vested interests, you know.

corporate interests kind of running the show, which is what we have right now in a really big way. And I think then the other one point to make is that there are things you can do. There are things that you can do that, you know, are no to low cost, are they not going to be frictionless in this frictionless world, but but where you can take some steps to protect you and your family and you can you can make your voice heard. So

You know, I don't know if it's worth just highlighting a few of those. because you know, we really do believe that you shouldn't you you know, you shouldn't it shouldn't be a privilege to buy green. and and I think that now there there are a lot of things that you can do. I mean, for starters. did I lose you, Corey? Okay, good. Just making sure. there are a couple simple things. you know, I

Corey Dion Lewis (32:59.511)
Yeah.

Corey Dion Lewis (33:15.117)
Nope, you're still here.

Sarah Vogel (33:23.139)
Coming down to some of the basics, checking your house for lead. You can go to the hardware store and there are these very cheap strips and you can just test the dust, especially around areas where you're coming in and out of the house. We know lead, we've known lead's a problem for a very long time. You can check with your local water utility and find out if they have if they have a program to get lead.

Pipes. There's a lot of money that's come out of the federal government to get lead pipes that deliver drinking water to your home out of the ground. You can choose no fragrant products. So fragranted products often contain a set of compounds called phthalates. These are well known to impact the reproductive system. And here

It's not really necessary. I know some families get really attached to a certain smell and it has an emotional value, but I I I know we can I know you can break it if you understand that you're bringing in really an unnecessary risk, particularly for children, young children. and that goes, you know, for your laundry and things like that. Don't microwave with plastic. Try to keep plastic toys out of your children's mouth chewing, you know, mouths. You can avoid things like stain resistant clothing and fabric.

Corey Dion Lewis (34:29.015)
Yeah.

Sarah Vogel (34:43.533)
And probably the simplest one as a public health advocate is when in doubt, wash your hands. So chemicals and the products that we use in our homes, they accumulate in the dust. And so, you know, washing your hands after you've been cleaning, particularly when you're cleaning out the lint in your dryer. We know that, for example, what are called flame retardants have been found to accumulate in that lint. Just wash your hands, keep your kids away from that.

so it those are just sort of simple things that have been shown to be able to actually lower your exposure to some of these chemicals that we're concerned about. And then just lastly, you know, the kind of there are clean products out there that are totally cost comparative. there's a program that the EPA has had and is still doing called Safer Choice, where they they've actually looked at the

Products in your, it's for cleaning products. and and you know, and retailers like you know, the all all the main retailers have programs now where they are looking at high-risk chemicals in their supply chains. And and some of them will have sort of, you know, clean clean shop shops, part of their shops. Walmart has one, Target, you know, many of the of the big retailers.

and those, you know, are are the products getting better and there being more cost comparative. So there are some you know, there's some few things that that I mean I gave you a long list, but there are things that you can do to measurably lower your exposure.

Corey Dion Lewis (36:24.349)
No, that that's amazing. It's always good to know there are some things that are within your power that you can you can control and and that can cause some really good, have some really good benefits. right now, Congress is looking at possible changes to Tosca. and advocates are raising alarms. You know, walk us through what's actually being proposed and what would it mean if those protections get weakened?

Sarah Vogel (36:29.871)
Exactly.

Sarah Vogel (36:53.357)
Yeah. So there's been a lot of activity here. I mean here in Washington. there are no formal bills yet introduced. So I'm not gonna give you like a name of a bill and that's why. But there are a lot of what are kind of called draft proposals. That means there's actual text circulating around. And so I'm gonna just touch on some themes of problems that we see.

Corey Dion Lewis (37:16.48)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Vogel (37:20.747)
And it's a little deja vu if we go back to, you know, broken Tosca. The first that one is this setting a really impossible to meet standard for EPA to take action, just raising that standard really high. and and we think would just undermine EPA's ability to take action on on well-known hazardous chemicals that they're reviewing now, like

Corey Dion Lewis (37:24.009)
Mm.

Sarah Vogel (37:48.154)
Cancer causing formaldehyde and vinyl chloride. It takes away, there are proposals that strip out that requirement to consider the people who are most at risk. And so then what you end up doing is just dangerously underestimating the health risks of where those chemicals may be produced or worker exposures. So that's a real concern.

efforts to make it a lot easier for potentially new chemicals to come onto the market with little or no review, just kind of rubber stamping them again, a bit of going back to the way things were. some proposals have created just unbelievable conflicts of interests, inviting industry to play a a real outsize role in reviewing its own chemicals. and then creating some loopholes for

kind of classes of chemicals that we know are quite quite hazardous. So it has, you know, what we from large part what we've seen does make us really concerned. You know, and I think not for for crazy reasons, because we saw for decades a law that wasn't working. And now, you know, and then seeing some of those important changes just dramatically watered

Corey Dion Lewis (39:05.687)
Right.

Sarah Vogel (39:13.689)
Down or really even worsened is is incredibly frustrating, particularly given, as I mentioned earlier, that that most all Americans favor the law when they hear about it, right? They they s they think that it should be doing more. and so this is really the the interests of you know a a a few powerful interests it, you know, trying to get.

Corey Dion Lewis (39:26.338)
Right.

Sarah Vogel (39:40.545)
and essentially what they would like versus what's in the best interests of of the public and the public's health.

Corey Dion Lewis (39:48.066)
Yeah, I I want to touch on that very small group of people that want this because there there's a tension that they would say that this regulation hurts businesses and innovation. And there may be some lawmakers that maybe agree with that or go with that for whatever their reasons are, whether I think they're stupid or not. how do you respond to that argument?

Sarah Vogel (40:13.529)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Vogel (40:17.987)
Yeah. So this argument that regulation kills innovation and and kills market forces is is just wrong. I mean it it's factually wrong, and and I'll I'll kind of point out a couple of key points about that. there's also a long history of the chemical industry.

Saying the sky is gonna fall if some small action is taken or a market would collapse and and we wouldn't be able to grow certain food if a certain pesticide had some restrictions. And that's never been the case. And it's it's a compelling argument, right? And it it makes because no one wants to, you know, hamper innovation, but it's not considering a couple of really important factors. First, there's a real reality.

That there's an important relationship to having strong, consistent rules of the road, if you will, effective regulations that actually incentivizes smarter innovation. It actually can be a driver of innovation. And we've seen that with the Clean Air Act, for example. Companies that are buying chemicals to make products that you and I buy, they don't want the risk of the chemical, right? They just want the their product to work.

So, and they don't want the liability that comes with that, which has been a big issue with lots of chemicals, lead and these PFAS compounds that are showing up everywhere. And there's a well-documented history that some in the chemical industry have deliberately hid or distorted evidence of harm of chemicals for decades.

So there's an agreement out long among many inside the private sector broadly defined, not just the producers of chemicals, that actually want independent, rigorous, robust evidence to be kind of setting the rules of the road, right? Because you don't want that risk on your in your on your books, right? So draw the for the best interests of sort of like collective society, having these rules that are driving innovation.

Sarah Vogel (42:35.203)
Giving people the flexibility to get there on their own, but you need a standard. Otherwise, it's just mayhem, right? It's just chaos. And so, like innovation at whose, you know, innovation so that we can have a bunch more, you know, persistent toxic chemicals that the drinking water utilities have to clean up. That's what we've had with PFAS, for example. Just getting approved onto the market. And guess who's whole? You know, farmers now have liability and consumer product companies and drinking water companies.

That's not it, that's not good innovation, right? There's there's innovation and then there's like innovation that's gonna lift pe you know people and health. And then the second really important factor is that you have to consider the there are real benefits when we innovate more safely, because there are real health impacts to have putting toxic chemicals out into the world.

Corey Dion Lewis (43:08.78)
Right.

Sarah Vogel (43:31.337)
And you know, again, lead is just this long historic case where the EPA issued a rule not long ago designed to to really pull these lead pipes out of our drinking water system. And they estimated and they looked at all the different health impacts of lead, and they estimated that the investment made to pull those lead pipes out was gonna be a ratio of 35 to one.

And it would bring anywhere from like 17 to 34 billion dollars annually in healthcare benefits. So you have we the part we have to think about when we're thinking about innovation is when you do it badly, you are you're putting enormous cost onto society. It's just not the cost that's sitting on, you know, the chemical producers' books, it's on everybody else's. And so

Corey Dion Lewis (44:06.977)
Wow.

Sarah Vogel (44:28.493)
Yes, we want innovation, but we want it done in a way that's gonna, you know, bring real benefit over long periods of time. It's not gonna all you know push the risk onto society or onto, you know, individuals or other companies, right? You have to consider the whole the whole factor of what does it mean to to to have innovation and protect our public self, which is what Tasca is meant to do. It's meant to do both.

Corey Dion Lewis (44:56.183)
That's that's amazing. Sarah, thank you so much. I'm I'm gonna let you drop the mic right there. That was great. Sarah, for those that are listening that want to learn more about the environmental defense fund, how they can be better advocates for this work, where can they find you and and the and how can they connect with the work?

Sarah Vogel (45:02.058)
Yeah.

Sarah Vogel (45:20.675)
Yeah. yes, get your voice known and heard. you can learn a lot about Tosca that we were talking about today at edf.org slash forward slash T S C A. we also have a map that of the United States where you can look to see where you live and where are there and your proximity to manufacturing of chemicals regulated under this law.

And that you can just put in chemical action map.edf.org and you put in your zip code and scroll in and there's an there's an area where you can take action and let your representatives know that you want them to to take action on on toxic chemicals.

Corey Dion Lewis (46:10.301)
Awesome. Again, Sarah, thank you so much for being on the show with me today. I would love to have you back for a part two about water at some point because that is a huge thing for us here in the state of Iowa. so and there are a lot of people in communities that have no idea what's going on. They just know the water is bad, but they don't know why. so that that is something that, you know, we're currently working with. But again, thank you so much.

Sarah Vogel (46:21.496)
Yeah.

Sarah Vogel (46:32.173)
Mm-hmm.

Corey Dion Lewis (46:38.689)
For being with me today. and everybody, thank you for listening to the Healthy Project Podcast. Everything that Sarah talked about today, I will make sure I have those links in the description of this episode to make it easy for you to get to. so you don't have to try to figure it out with through just trying to rewind and listen, make it a lot easier for you. again, thank you so much for joining us on the Healthy Project podcast. I'll highlight you next time.

Sarah Vogel (46:40.605)
I think.

Sarah Vogel (46:58.105)
Mm-hmm.