The Environmental Protection Agency reversed Bush administration drinking water policies Wednesday, announcing that it will regulate perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel, and 16 other chemicals - called volatile organic compounds - that can cause cancer at high enough doses.
The perchlorate decision "is about protecting the health of between 5 [million] and 17 million Americans that are exposed to perchlorate in the water they drink," EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said in remarks to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
In a statement, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who has sought to regulate perchlorate since 2002, said, "I will do everything I can to make sure this new protection moves forward."
The EPA said it would take an additional two years to propose a perchlorate regulation, a pace that angered some environmental groups. "The science is already out there," said Jennifer Sass, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group. "Anything that anybody needed to say about this process is already done." The EPA has collected 39,000 public comments regarding perchlorate regulations.
In October 2008, the Bush administration bucked the advice of its own EPA scientists and announced that it would not regulate perchlorate.
A Washington Post investigation at the time found that officials from the Bush administration heavily edited a key EPA report to play down the risks of the chemical. A Government Accountability Office report also found that the Defense Department - which, along with NASA, is a heavy user of perchlorate - sought to derail any perchlorate standards.
Perchlorate occurs naturally in very small amounts and is also used in rocket fuel, explosives and fireworks.
A 2010 Government Accountability Office study reported perchlorate contamination at 70 percent of Defense Department facilities. A 2006 Food and Drug Administration study found perchlorate in 74 percent of a wide range of food items it tested.
"A very long period of bad public policy was reversed today," said Mae Wu, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Read more at The Washington Post.