Colgate, Other Firms Fight to Save EPA Safer Chemicals Program
BNA Environment & Energy Report | Pat Rizzuto | March 11, 2025
Major businesses are among those asking the EPA to keep programs that help companies make safer chemical products off the Trump administration’s chopping block, despite increasing pressure to play down so-called green initiatives.
The BASF Corp., Colgate-Palmolive Co., Staples Inc., Case Medical Inc., and Unilever PLC are among a growing coalition of companies, investors, and other groups that circulated an open letter sent to the Environmental Protection Agency asking it to retain the Safer Choice and a related antimicrobial program that recognize products made with chemicals that meet protective health and environmental criteria.
Federal agencies, including the EPA, have until March 13 to submit the first of two staff and office retention and reorganization plans to the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management to comply with their memo implementing President Donald Trump’s Feb. 11 workforce optimization Executive Order. The order prioritized staff reductions in “offices that perform functions not mandated by statute or other law.”
“It will be up to the EPA’s lawyers to determine what actions are authorized by current law—and not just Safer Choice, but also other programs,” said Mike Gruber, executive vice president for government relations at the Household & Commercial Products Association. HCPA is among seven trade and other groups that spearheaded the coalition’s campaign to protect Safer Choice and its related initiative Design for the Environment (DfE), which focuses on antimicrobial products.
The EPA established both programs to help implement the Pollution Prevention Act, although neither are named in the law. Last year, however, Congress named Safer Choice in a section of a law addressing Department of Defense purchases, which may offer legal protection in the event the Trump administration tries to cut it.
US Made
Businesses proactively reached out to the EPA last month because the agency tried to eliminate Safer Choice during Trump’s first administration, said David Levine, co-founder and president of the American Sustainable Business Network, which is helping lead the coalition.
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 also urged the incoming administration to transition EPA’s program to the private sector, and the administration has implemented many of the project’s recommendations, Levine said.
Still, more than 270 organizations signed the letter as of March 5, up from 206 in early February, and the coalition plans to share the letter with Congress soon, because Safer Choice is a cost-effective way to promote US goods, Levine said.
Almost all of Safer Choice’s nearly 2,000 certified household, pet care, institutional and household cleaning, and other products are manufactured in the US, according to the coalition’s letter. The total production volume of those goods was 2.4 billion pounds in 2024, marking 150% growth since 2021, it said.
At a time when businesses are being intimidated and aren’t speaking up, it’s striking that these companies are publicly supporting Safer Choice, Levine said.
Following Trump’s election, companies began downplaying their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts, a phenomenon dubbed “greenhushing.”
Business Case
Safer Choice, and the safer chemical ingredients list it offers, have been essential to Case Medical—which makes containers, medical cleaning, and other health care supplies—and is designed to safeguard the company’s workers, hospital personnel that handle the instruments and disinfectants, and patients, said CEO Marcia Frieze.
The marketplace is filled with so many certification programs that “you can almost buy a label to say your product is safe,” Frieze said.
By contrast, the publicly available scientific criteria EPA’s program uses and its requirement that independent third parties verify product claims helps Case give customers confidence its products are less harmful without compromising quality or performance, she said.
“In a market place that’s flooded with green claims, Safer Choice stands out as providing an independently, verified program that lets customers understand the safety behind products they buy,” said Ashley Orgain, chief impact officer at Unilever’s Seventh Generation. EPA’s involvement is critical to that reputation, she said.
It’s also cost-effective, offering a bang for the buck that far outweighs the program’s annual budget of about $4 million, Levine said.
Legal Questions
If the EPA eliminates Safer Choice, it must address statutory obligations and legal questions, said HCPA’s Gruber.
The fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (Public Law 118-159), which became law in December, directed the Pentagon “to the maximum extent practicable” to purchase only Safer Choice certified cleaning products; or goods certified by an independent third-party organization in a manner consistent with the EPA’s program.
Manufacturers have built businesses around selling certified products for decades and incorporated them into initiatives including the Congressionally-authorized Pesticide Registration Improvement Act, Gruber said.
If the EPA eliminates the Safer Choice suite of programs, Gruber said businesses will need answers to questions including:
Environmentally Preferable Purchasing policies exist in 28 states with 12 linking directly to EPA initiatives and nine states naming Safer Choice and DfE, Levine said.
Iowa, for example, requires schools to use green cleaning products, and specifically mentions Safer Choice and DfE.
The Toxics Use Reduction Institute (TURI), an independent agency Massachusetts established in 1989, has so many decades of experience advising state businesses on reducing their use of harmful chemicals that schools, states, and groups outside of the state increasingly are asking it for advice, said Alex Symko, an institute specialist.
Schools concerned about asthma and skin irritations come to TURI, which points them to EPA’s programs so they can find products that are “a really good option to protect teachers, custodians, and students,” Amelia Wagner, a safer chemicals specialist at the institute.
EPA’s involvement in the program is essential, said laboratory specialist Alicia McCarthy, because the use of privatized labels “runs the risk of profit overtaking public health and transparency.”