Once again, The American Chemistry Council put profits ahead of babies.

by Nick
(Montreal)

It was close, but the plan to ban BPA in babies’ bottles and sippy cups has been killed in the U.S. Senate, during debate over the food and safety bill.

This is a sad day, and a disturbing story, which I found covered in an excellent article on GreenBiz.com.

Here is an excerpt:

“The BPA agreement, though, was kept out of the food safety bill, and Feinstein pinned the blame on the American Chemistry Council (ACC), an industry trade group that has previously fought against legislation on BPA and other chemicals.

Feinstein said she was blocked from offering up the agreement, and she said that the ACC was the main driver behind opposition by other senators. In the last two years, the ACC has lobbied against various state laws as well as the the Ban Poisonous Additives (BPA) Act of 2009, which never made it out of committee. It also opposed Canada's decision to label BPA as a toxic chemical. And while the ACC agreed with some concepts in a bill aimed at reforming the U.S.'s chemicals policy, it did not support the exact legislation.”

I’m no expert on politics, and I still don’t understand how industry-funded lobby groups hold such influence over the decision of elected members of the Senate.

And, as always, I cannot understand how these individual lobbyists sleep at night. Don’t they have children of their own?

Read the full article here...