Environmentalists are chafing over the new charm offensive launched by the chemical industry in anticipation of a rewrite of the Toxic Substances Control Act. In the planning stages since late last year, the Coalition for Chemical Safety has now gone public with a press release celebrating its 150th member.

The group has a website featuring photos of smiling families and a pair of hands cradling a miniature green earth, and appeals for business, labor and individuals to press Congress to pass "legislation that will take a comprehensive approach to protecting public health, preserving American jobs and innovation, and promoting the development of new safe green chemicals that will protect our planet for years to come."

The coalition is led by Joe Householder -- a consultant to PR firm Purple Strategies and one-time communications director for former Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, who won't say who hired him or what his budget is. He concedes that one of the coalition's Washington-based "national members," the American Chemical Council, was an "early part of our discussions." (Another newly listed national member is the Fertilizer Institute.)

The group claims members in 17 states -- including several agribusiness groups in the farm belt -- and pays individuals in several states to coordinate activities there. The group wants the Environmental Protection Agency to have authority to declare chemicals safe for their intended uses, and to have the process incorporate industry preferences.

Environmental Defense Fund senior scientist Richard Denison says the industry wants the EPA to ignore safety risks from multiple sources of exposure and that it opposes assessing the safety of thousands of existing chemicals exempted from scrutiny when the TSCA was first passed in 1976.

Householder says the group, a 501c4, won't be hiring a lobbyist, but will rely on earned media and encouraging members to contact their senators. He and Denison have already sparred on Denison's blog about the group's claim to be made up of "people like you." The coalition's Montana spokesperson, captured on public radio, said that the group supported banning bisphenol A,  a controversial component in many plastics -- even as the chemical industry has launched a $10 million campaign to defend it. Householder dismissed the Montana representative's statement as her personal views and said the group doesn't have a position on individual chemicals.