Last-ditch Try to Pass GOP’s POPs Bill Fails

The 109th Congress came close to passing legislation that would have severely undermined U.S. participation in the Stockholm Convention, a landmark international treaty that targets persistent organic pollutants (POPs) for global phaseout.

Because POPs remain intact in the environment for long periods, they become widely distributed geographically and accumulate in the food chain, winding up in the fatty tissue of living creatures and becoming toxic to humans and wildlife. POPs circulate globally and can cause damage wherever they travel. The U.S. has signed but not ratified the Stockholm treaty, which (as of early March) has been ratified by 141 countries around the world.

As reported in our Fall 2006 issue, the Gillmor POPs Bill (named for its author and aggressive advocate, Ohio Republican Representative Paul Gillmor) passed out of the then-Republican controlled Energy and Commerce committee on a party line vote. This controversial implementing legislation would have delinked U.S. action from international decisions about adding new persistent chemicals to the list for a global ban. The bill also threatened states’ rights with radical preemption of health-protective regulation. The Gillmor bill was blocked by a strong coalition response from the U.S. POPs Working Group (PWG), a coalition of environmental, labor and health professionals. PAN is a leading member of the PWG.

On December 8, only hours before the House adjourned for the holidays, Rep. Gillmor tried to sneak through his POPs bill (co-sponsored by Republicans Barton of Texas and Boehlert of New York), but the effort fizzled before the end of the lame-duck session. With Democrats now in control of the 110th Congress, PAN and our partners are advocating for the U.S. to rejoin the international community as a constructive player on environmental issues, rather than consistently blocking and slowing progress on reducing chemical hazards. We are optimistic that, with the new Congress, the outlook now favors a good POPs bill leading to final ratification of the Stockholm Convention.