Disrupting regulation: Understanding industry engagement on endocrine-disrupting chemicals

Abstract

Over the course of the 20th century, the chemicals industry developed various strategies to engage in regulatory processes with the apparent goal of preventing, delaying, or weakening government regulation of their products. Today, the industry continues to employ these strategies to counter efforts to regulate endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), achieving success by exploiting weaknesses and vulnerabilities in existing regulatory structures. This article asserts that industry efforts to counter the regulation of EDCs is comprised of three different forms of engagement, including (1) engagement with science, (2) engagement with the public, and (3) engagement with politics. By demonstrating how individual strategies build off each other and are combined to achieve desired policy outcomes, this article demonstrates how the chemical industry's current strategy on EDCs follows a dynamic playbook that has been developed and improved over years of regulatory engagement.