The Strategy Center Blog

Please read and share our latest thoughts on safer chemicals policy, products, health and disease prevention, biobased manufacturing and the green economy, environmental health and justice, and much more. 

We’re Suing the Trump Administration Over Chemical Safety

Strategy Center
08.14.2017
It was just over a year ago that a landmark step in chemical-safety regulation came, when Congress approved legislation to strengthen federal regulation of toxic chemicals. But although proposed rules for implementing the new requirements were issued for comment, they weren’t finalized before President Obama left office. Then came the Trump Administration. Trump’s “new” Environmental Protection Agency has now issued final rules that are dramatically weaker. These rules determine how the agency...+ Read more

Two Incredible, Hard-Fought Victories

Strategy Center
08.04.2017
Incredible things happened this week. By decisive bipartisan votes to override Governor LePage's vetoes, Maine Legislators prioritized the health and safety of Maine children, families, and firefighters--and established a precedent-setting standard for the nation. First in the Nation Firefighters and families worked alongside a powerful coalition of labor and environmental groups, including the Environmental Health Strategy Center and its action arm, Prevent Harm, to pass the first law in the...+ Read more

Danger on the Plate

Strategy Center
07.25.2017
As the anesthesia mask was placed on her baby boy’s face, Laura Seaton started singing to him, trying to keep him calm. Her eight-month-old son needed a three-and-a-half hour surgery to reconstruct his penis. Laura’s son was born with a common birth defect. The more she has learned about it, the stronger her motivation has grown to join a growing number of parents, consumers, nurses, physicians, scientists, and health and safety advocates who are calling on the food industry to get toxic...+ Read more

The Journey to Our Safe Water Victory

Strategy Center
07.24.2017
After over six years with the Strategy Center, Emma Halas-O’Connor is departing for law school. She will be sorely missed, but she’s leaving on a high note: In her last weeks here, the Maine Legislature voted to override the Governor’s veto of LD 454, our bill to expand outreach and education around arsenic exposure through well water, and turned that important bill into law. In this blog post, Emma looks back on the long journey that led to this victory for safe drinking water for all Maine...+ Read more

(Un)Happy Macaroni and Cheese Day: Toxic Chemicals Discovered in 10 Varieties of Macaroni and Cheese Powders

Strategy Center
07.13.2017
Kraft Heinz Urged to Lead Industry-Wide Change On those evenings when time is tight and the cupboard is uninspiring, parents and babysitters across the country know they can rely on good old macaroni and cheese for a crowd-pleasing kids’ meal. But new tests raise questions about this popular comfort food. Toxic industrial chemicals were discovered in individual packets of cheese powder from several companies’ macaroni and cheese products, announced the Coalition for Safer Food Processing &...+ Read more
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Trump EPA Weakens TSCA Rules to Favor Chemical Industry

Strategy Center
06.26.2017
A guest blog by Jennifer Sass, Senior Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The Trump-Pruitt Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a set of rules last week that will make it easier to ignore chemical risks and disregard harmful exposures. The final rules introduce loopholes that could allow EPA to ignore important exposure routes and chemical product uses. This opens the door for EPA to disregard exposures to the most vulnerable and susceptible populations such as...+ Read more

Meet the Moms Who Got it Done

Strategy Center
06.23.2017
What does it take to pass safe drinking water law for children and families? Mom power! Our victory Monday in the Maine State House—safe drinking water law, passed with a strong, bipartisan veto override—will boost well-water testing and protect thousands of children and families in Maine's rural areas from drinking water contaminated by arsenic, which causes bladder, lung, and skin cancer, and harms children’s developing brains. Will you make a gift of $20 or more to pay tribute to the moms...+ Read more

New Report: BPA Still in 1/3 of Kroger & Albertsons Food Cans

Strategy Center
05.17.2017
By Mike Schade, Mind the Store campaign director for the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition. The Strategy Center is a founding member of the coalition. Today we co-released a new report that found toxic BPA in nearly 40% of food cans tested from the nation’s largest grocery stores and dollar store chains. The report, “ Kicking the Can? Major retailers still selling canned food with BPA ,” authored by our coalition partners the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) , shows that millions...+ Read more
EHSC Moms bus to Washington. D.C. spring 2012

The Ride to Reform

Strategy Center
06.10.2016
In our office yesterday, staff members shared a memory. It was four years ago this spring that a group of two-dozen Maine moms (along with some grandparents, college students, and others) boarded a bus with us. We headed down the highway to Washington, D.C., to join hundreds of other advocates who had come from all over the country to talk to members of Congress about the importance of overhauling the nation’s broken chemical safety system. The moms weren’t happy that Congress had repeatedly...+ Read more

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