Op-ed By Former state senator, retired Army lieutenant colonel calls on lawmakers to keep TSCA restrictions in place
Posted Thursday, August 20, 2026 12:00 pm in the Daily Independent
Pat Spearman
9/11. The date is seared into our consciousness forever. We all know where we were and what we were doing when it happened. Some of us are still dealing with its aftermath.
As a lieutenant colonel in the Army, I found myself working in the basement area at the Pentagon when the rebuilding was in full swing.
The construction was full of debris and spread tiny particulates into the air. My team and I had to walk through these clouds of dust, just to report to work daily. Every one of us breathed in asbestos, no matter what masks we wore for protection. Every one of us came down with respiratory illnesses, some more serious than others.
When I learned asbestos was only truly restricted in 2024 when new uses were banned under the reformed Toxic Substances Control Act, I was speechless, yet grateful there is now a law keeping it out of new building materials.
During my days at the Pentagon, I developed serious asthma issues. At times I’ve struggled to breathe. Too many times, I’ve been rushed to the emergency room to get breathing treatments to open the airways to my lungs.
At home, I’ve become well-acquainted with healthcare professionals in the emergency ward. I often see children there suffering because they have extreme asthma, like I do. At their ages I was healthy, running around and playing with my friends.
Most of the children I see in the hospital can’t run because it would be too hard for them to breathe. They have their lives before them. They shouldn’t suffer because of the pollutants in the air we all breathe. If we lose the protections keeping us safe from health-harming pollution, more of our children will suffer needlessly.
Those protections were embedded into the act when the law was strengthened in 2016 to give the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency teeth to set chemical restrictions. Without this critical chemical safety law, asbestos could still be used as a building material, more carcinogens and dangerous lung pollutants would be in the air we breathe, and forever chemicals — PFAS — would have fewer limitations. For our children’s future there is a fierce urgency now to keep TSCA protections strong to protect against toxic chemicals.
Last summer, there were more than a 100 days when temperatures remained over 100 degrees in Las Vegas due to fossil fuel greenhouse gases warming the planet. Those days are hard days for me.
Wildfire days are hard days for me as well. They are life-threatening for those of us with lung conditions. The fires turn old chemicals embedded into building materials, now being scrutinized by TSCA, potentially lethal to breathe. When ignited, they become particulates in air. Yet, I know I’m fortunate because I don’t have to breathe in heavily polluted cancer-causing air day in and day out like people I know who live near factories or along transportation corridors.
It’s high time our environmental justice communities are lifted up. It’s time that our ZIP codes stop determining who will suffer the most from pollution. These communities need TSCA, which keeps dangerous chemicals in check, to remain on the books. But the law is now under threat in Congress.
Some wish to weaken TSCA when it comes up for fee renewal in September. If they are successful, the progress we have made would come to a halt. We could find ourselves breathing more air laced with toxic chemicals, eating food from land saturated in PFAS, and anticipated restrictions on cancer causing chemicals like formaldehyde stopped in their tracks. Letting people be exposed to chemicals is negligent, irresponsible and morally corrupt.
TSCA needs to be funded without any changes to the law.
We must fight to uphold the laws protecting Americans from toxic chemicals. There is a fierce urgency for Congress to act on this issue by keeping TSCA as it is. “We the People” deserve to live our lives knowing the federal government is there to defend us by upholding our rights. Everyone has the right to breathe clean air, drink clean water and grow up in healthy neighborhoods.
Pat Spearman is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and former Nevada state senator. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.
