For the third consecutive year the House gave the thumbs up to a toxics-reduction bill that the American Chemical Society touts as making molecules benign by design.

Representatives passed the Green Chemistry Research and Development Act unanimously Tuesday afternoon. This year the bill has yet to make it to the Senate, where it flailed the last two times around.

"I hope that the third time will truly be the charm," sponsor Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., told several handfuls of representatives in attendance before the voice vote. "Green chemistry promises a ton of pollution prevention."

Gingrey’s bipartisan legislation has the backing of the Washington-based American Chemical Society, which formed an alliance with the Green Chemistry Institute in 2001.

"This is not do-gooder chemistry," Tamara Nameroff, acting director of the institute, said in a telephone interview after the House vote. "Chemistry touches everything in our lives. This is about designing chemicals and chemical products so they don’t pollute the environment."

Companies adopting solutions that minimize hazardous substances benefit economically by improving their bottom line, Nameroff emphasized, plus they improve public health and the environment.

Since 1996, the Environmental Protection Agency has awarded competitors in the annual Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge. This year, an Oregon State University professor, Columbia Forest Products and Hercules Inc. were recognized for inventing an adhesive for wood composites made from soy flour.

Toxic formaldehyde, a probable human carcinogen, is usually a key component in manufacturing plywood, particleboard and other wood composites that are turned into furniture and kitchen cabinets. Columbia used the soy-based adhesive to replace more than 47 million pounds of formaldehyde-based composites in 2006.

The environmentally friendlier formaldehyde substitute can improve air quality in homes and offices. As well, farmers can benefit because of the current soy flour glut.

Inspiration for the professor, Kaichang Li, came from studying how mussels adhere to rocks. He modified some of the soy protein amino acids to resemble those of the mussels’ adhesive protein.

House Resolution 2850, approved by the Science and Technology Committee in July after a June introduction, calls for splitting $165 million in research and development grants among four federal agencies during the next three fiscal years. The National Science Foundation, the Energy Department, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and EPA would share $51 million in 2008, $55 million in 2009 and $59 million in 2009.

"This is a coordinated platform," Nameroff said, about involving universities and federal labs. "It would bring in a new set of researchers to think about this problem."

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