Climate change solutions
We deliver game-changing environmental solutions that have a real impact for people around the globe.
In case you missed it, an out-of-touch, industry-first proposal from Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives threatens to significantly weaken the Toxic Substances Control Act, a popular chemical safety law that helps keep dangerous chemicals out of our homes, workplaces and schools. A similar proposal from the U.S. Senate would also roll back these essential public health protections.
Why does this matter? The Toxic Substances Control Act gives EPA the authority and responsibility to review chemicals more effectively – before and after they enter the market. The law underwent a critical reform 10 years ago because it was not sufficiently protecting millions of Americans. Now, the Toxic Substances Control Act is working, and it’s keeping the most dangerous chemicals out of our lives.
Here are some ways our bedrock chemical safety law is working to protect us, and what’s at stake if Republicans in Congress weaken it. Over the next few weeks, we’ll dive deeper on how industry-first Republican proposals in Congress would put profits over health, and how the Toxic Substances Control Act keeps us safe – and is worth fighting for.
The Toxic Substances Control Act gives EPA the authority to regulate dangerous chemicals to the extent that they no longer pose an unreasonable risk to people or the environment.
Thanks to the 2016 improvements to the Toxic Substances Control Act, many harmful chemicals – including several that cause cancer – are finally being removed from our communities, homes and everyday products. The Toxic Substances Control Act sets a clear public health mandate: EPA must consider real world exposures to chemicals – including the multiple ways people are exposed to them – to determine whether a chemical poses an unreasonable risk to health or the environment. The law explicitly requires EPA to consider risks to workers, children and other people most at risk, and it must make this determination based on science, without considering costs or other non-risk factors.
Once EPA determines that a chemical poses an unreasonable risk, the Toxic Substances Control Act requires EPA to regulate that chemical “to the extent necessary so that the chemical substance no longer presents such risk.” And thanks to the 2016 improvements to the law, EPA finally has the tools to take action on some of the most toxic chemicals out there: asbestos, trichloroethylene (TCE) and methylene chloride, all chemicals that have devastated families across the country.
But the House Republicans’ proposal to weaken the Toxic Substances Control Act would strip away EPA’s ability to protect Americans from the worst chemicals already on the market.
The proposed rollbacks would sharply restrict the risks EPA may consider in risk evaluations for chemicals already on the market, and it would take away EPA’s tools for mitigating the unreasonable risk people may face.
The draft legislation does this in a few key ways. First, it lowballs or outright excludes risks to people most likely to be harmed by these chemicals: children, pregnant women, and people who live near or work with these chemicals. It severely narrows EPA’s scientific review, excluding aggregate exposures – the combined exposures someone faces from a chemical – and calling for the exposure pathway to be “more likely than not” to occur for it even to be considered. This is a fundamentally unscientific way to consider our exposure to toxic chemicals.
EPA would also be required to assume workers are protected by OSHA standards – even though OSHA says they are outdated and often not protective – and assume full compliance. This would devolve to an assumption that every person who handles these chemicals is wearing personal protective equipment 100% of the time. Personal protective equipment is the least effective way of protecting workers, and using equipment based on outdated standards leaves workers at risk. And the proposal would expand procedural obstacles – court challenges from the industry on EPA’s scientific assessments, deadline extensions – that could delay implementation of EPA’s protections.
The proposal calls on EPA to minimize risk… but not really
Rather than directing EPA to manage the risk of chemicals so they no longer pose an unreasonable risk to people or the environment, the Republicans’ proposal requires EPA to “minimize [risk], to the extent reasonably feasible.” This murky “reasonably feasible” standard essentially precludes an outright ban of even the most harmful chemicals, allowing restrictions that could only reduce risk by marginal amounts.
The proposal calls for cost-effectiveness for any industry action, pushing EPA to prioritize the industry’s bottom line over protecting people’s health when determining how to regulate a chemical. It also introduces new evidentiary burdens by requiring EPA to demonstrate that alternatives are technically and economically feasible for the specific chemical or condition of use. In practice, if the industry says the reasonable guardrails EPA proposes for a chemical aren’t feasible, then the chemical wouldn’t be approved. This will discourage EPA from considering health-protective controls.
One more loophole
An alarming loophole included in this part of the proposal would create sweeping exemptions and delays for replacement parts for complex durable and consumer goods, like appliances and televisions. The chemicals used in replacement parts would be broadly exempt from regulations unless EPA can show – with substantial evidence – that the part itself independently contributes significantly to unreasonable risk for the chemical. This creates a massive loophole for chemicals used in legacy products and significantly delays even the simplest protection when EPA finds unreasonable risk.
It all adds up to a proposal that would put industry profits ahead of Americans’ health.
Go deeper: Read more about how the House Republicans’ proposal to gut the Toxic Substances Control Act would put our health at risk.
In case you missed it, an out-of-touch, industry-first proposal from Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives threatens to significantly weaken the Toxic Substances Control Act, a popular chemical safety law that helps keep dangerous chemicals out of our homes, workplaces and schools.
Why does this matter? The Toxic Substances Control Act gives EPA the authority and responsibility to review chemicals more effectively – before and after they enter the market. The law underwent a critical reform 10 years ago because it was not sufficiently protecting millions of Americans. Now, the Toxic Substances Control Act is working, and it’s keeping the most dangerous chemicals out of our lives.
At a recent House Energy & Commerce committee hearing to discuss this proposal, we heard some alarming misinformation – pushed by the industry that stands to benefit financially from looser protections – about how the Toxic Substances Control Act works.
But we have the facts. Here are some ways our bedrock chemical safety law is working to keep dangerous chemicals out of our lives. Over the next few weeks, we’ll dive deeper on each of these themes, because these are protections worth fighting for.
Thanks to the 2016 improvements to the Toxic Substances Control Act, many harmful chemicals – including several that cause cancer – have been kept out of our communities, homes and everyday products. EPA has the tools and authority to demonstrate that highly toxic chemicals, like trichloroethylene (TCE), methylene chloride and asbestos, present an unreasonable risk to people and the environment, and in a major win for public health, the agency issued regulations to phase them out of use.
The chemical industry calls for “risk realism” in EPA’s assessments, suggesting that by taking into account the different ways that kids, pregnant women, workers and consumers are exposed to toxic chemicals, EPA is being overly protective. But families and workers shouldn’t have to shoulder the risks of facing reproductive, developmental and respiratory harms from chemicals just so the industry can profit.
Despite what the chemical industry wants us to believe, EPA approves new chemicals all the time – in fact, the vast majority of them: 370 in 2025, and 4,443 since 2016 when the Toxic Substances Control Act was strengthened. When delays occur, it’s often because the industry has provided incomplete data, raised issues with proposed safety guardrails or has not completed the final step for commercialization.
The Republicans’ proposal caves to the false narrative that EPA is the reason for any delays in new chemical reviews. It significantly raises the bar for what EPA must do to prove a chemical is dangerous – to the extent that it would essentially turn EPA’s safety review into a rubberstamp for any chemical the industry wants to bring to market.
The Toxic Substances Control Act offers workers protections against many industrial and commercial chemicals – chemicals already on the market as well as new chemicals.
In contrast, worker safeguards through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) include exposure limits for only a small subset of chemicals and exclude the majority of new chemicals, and the standards that exist are outdated and inadequate.
The Republicans’ proposal strips away EPA’s duty to consider the people most at risk from exposure, and it would dangerously underestimate the health risks to people living near where these chemicals are produced.
Complex new chemicals must undergo a chemical safety review under the Toxic Substances Control Act, and, through a rigorous, evidence-based process, EPA determines whether the new chemical is dangerous. All new chemicals must pass this test.
The proposal from Republicans would upend this logic by creating a loophole to allow a company to claim that a complex chemical is “equivalent” to another chemical already on the market, even if they are only glancingly related. This loophole would give the company a pass from putting the new chemical through a safety review. In practice, this could open a back door to allow the toxic, harmful substances generated through the pyrolysis of waste plastic – so-called “advanced recycling” – onto the market.
The chemical industry claims that it’s easier for their chemicals to get approved in other countries and that EPA should rubberstamp their uses here in the U.S., too. But once approved for market, a chemical can be used – and people can be exposed to it – in many different ways. That’s why it’s essential for EPA to approve chemicals for the specific ways it’ll be used in the U.S.
This issue of country-specific approvals has come up before. Countries in the Organization for Cooperation and Development (OECD) previously considered whether countries should mutually accept chemicals approved in each nation. But they walked away from the idea, because countries have very different laws and regulations that would translate into different requirements.
Go deeper: Read more about how the Republicans’ proposal to gut the Toxic Substances Control Act would put our health at risk.
The Toxic Substances Control Act – the primary U.S. chemical safety law – gives the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the authority and responsibility to review chemicals for safety, both before and after they enter the market. The law was significantly strengthened in 2016 when Congress passed a bipartisan overhaul of the law. In managing the safety of chemicals, the Toxic Substances Control Act requires EPA to take steps to protect the people most at risk from exposure to toxic chemicals, like children, pregnant women, workers and people living near chemical facilities.
American families should be able to trust that the chemicals in their everyday products have been assessed for safety and won’t cause them serious health problems.
New polling from EDF shows overwhelming support across party lines for the Toxic Substances Control Act. The law is universally popular, with more than four-in-five (82%) favoring it. That support is consistent regardless of gender, race, age, education level or party affiliation.
Despite this popularity, this week, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a discussion draft bill that would fundamentally dismantle the core responsibility for EPA to ensure the safety of chemicals in our economy and everyday lives.
The Toxic Substances Control Act is the country’s bedrock chemical safety law, and it keeps dangerous chemicals out of our homes, workplaces and communities. Americans don’t want potentially toxic chemicals fast-tracked into their lives.
The discussion draft would make sweeping changes to the Toxic Substances Control Act that threaten the public’s health.
The proposal to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act would remove the requirement for EPA to follow an independent, scientific process to determine if a chemical can be used safely before it can come onto the market.
In addition to eliminating this requirement, the bill would proactively invite industry to participate in reviewing their own products. This would dramatically undermine EPA’s responsibility and authority to protect Americans from the most toxic chemicals and to adhere to a scientifically robust, independent process that Americans can trust.
Many dangerous chemicals, including many PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” entered the market before a bipartisan Congress strengthened the law in 2016. The current proposal would bring back this process that allowed forever chemicals into the market by flipping the safety standard on its head.
Instead of requiring EPA to prove a chemical doesn’t pose an unreasonable risk as is required under the current law, the proposal makes it EPA’s responsibility to prove that a chemical would likely pose an unreasonable risk. This small distinction would have major impacts – it would shift the burden of proof away from safety, effectively turning EPA’s safety review into a rubber stamp for any chemical the industry wants to bring to market.
In this proposal, once a chemical is rubber stamped for one use, it could more easily be used in additional unapproved ways. In practice, this could lead to a chemical that was approved for use in industrial settings – with proper worker protections in place – potentially being used in homes, schools and daycares.
Republicans’ proposal would severely weaken EPA’s ability to regulate existing chemicals that we know are toxic. The Republicans’ proposed requirement that EPA prove a chemical is likely to pose an unreasonable risk to public health is intended to set a nearly unreachable standard for addressing the risks from dangerous chemicals. The discussion draft bill also diminishes what EPA can consider harmful in the first place when evaluating toxic chemicals, requiring EPA to apply a vague and difficult standard of proof, making it harder to regulate toxic chemicals. It minimizes the estimates of the risks to those living near chemical plants, workers, children and pregnant people by failing to consider their full chemical exposure.
This proposal would also limit the tools EPA can use to eliminate unreasonable risks, putting industry profits ahead of people’s health. This would severely undermine EPA’s ability to protect Americans from the worst toxic chemicals already in use, like cancer-causing formaldehyde and vinyl chloride. These chemicals have long devastated the health of workers and communities on the fenceline of industrial facilities.
The bill also allows the chemical industry and manufacturers to delay for months or years the regulation of existing toxic chemicals by challenging in court any scientific finding by EPA that a chemical is harmful. The proposed process changes would prevent EPA from taking actions to reduce the risks to consumers until after the industry litigation is over.
The proposal would make it significantly more difficult to produce key information on the hazards of chemicals, how people are exposed to them, and how they harm the environment. It even prohibits EPA from requiring testing for whole groups of chemicals, including highly toxic chemicals. This information is key to properly characterizing the risks we face from groups of toxic chemicals, such as PFAS or “forever chemicals.”
This proposal creates a loophole for so-called advanced or chemical recycling – essentially the burning of plastic waste. It would allow harmful products produced through this process to be considered “equivalent” to chemicals already on the market without undergoing a safety review. Despite the fact that the products are contaminated with plastic’s toxic additives and harmful byproducts such as dioxins, these false equivalents would be rubberstamped as safe.
The chemicals industry and manufacturers have advocated for most of the proposals in this bill, and according to news reports EPA “keeps adding former industry lobbyists to the office that manages TSCA.” The Trump EPA has made moves to roll back numerous essential Toxic Substances Control Act protections against toxic chemicals, including altering the way the agency evaluates chemical risk and lowballing the risks from cancer-causing formaldehyde.
Joanna Slaney is Vice President for Political and Government Affairs at Environmental Defense Fund.
What’s new: January 20, 2026 marks the first-year anniversary of the European Union’s (EU) ban on most uses of bisphenol A (BPA) — an industrial chemical that’s commonly used in household plastics and food packaging. The 2025 regulation, which includes an 18-month phase-out, prohibits the use of BPA in several food contact materials including plastics, coatings, varnishes, inks and adhesives.
The EU’s decision to ban most BPA uses is supported by the 2023 European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) risk assessment, which found that the amount of BPA that’s safe for daily human consumption is 20,000 times less than what its 2015 assessment had found.
Why it matters: EFSA’s latest risk assessment found that BPA exposure could lead to an overactive immune system, causing out-of-control inflammation. BPA has also been linked to disruptions of the endocrine system, harming reproduction and inhibiting learning and memory. Research has shown that the immune system is most sensitive to BPA exposure, which can cause disruptions that weaken it and make the body more vulnerable to disease.
Americans face similar widespread exposure to BPA in their daily lives as EU residents did before last year’s ban. A survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that approximately 95% of Americans tested have BPA in their bodies, with children facing the highest levels. BPA has been detected in blood, urine, sweat, amniotic fluid and breast milk.
In 2022, EDF and our allies submitted a food additive petition asking the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to 1) limit BPA in food by revoking approvals for using it in adhesives and can coatings and 2) set strict limits on using BPA in plastic that contacts food. FDA has not yet made a decision on our petition, despite a legally-mandated 180-day deadline.
Our take: While Europe moves forward, the FDA has still not taken substantive action. That inaction is a decision. It means BPA continues to be allowed in the foods American families eat every day. It’s been 1,320 days since the agency filed our petition. The delay continues to put our health at risk.
Maricel Maffini is an independent consultant focused on human and environmental health and chemical safety. For more on the dangers of BPA in food, check out the video below.
Despite a 6-month delay and data gaps, EPA’s drastic reduction in lead service line counts may have unintended consequences.
What Happened?
After a 6-month long delay, EPA announced the next round of federal funding dedicated to lead service line replacement in late November. This year’s funding, totaling $3 billion, is allotted to states based on the service line inventories that were required to be submitted in October 2024.
This is the fourth year of the $15 billion funding as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure law, dedicated to replace harmful lead pipes delivering drinking water to homes in thousands of communities.
Prior year allotments are based on EPA’s 7th Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey and Assessment (DWINSA), a voluntary survey used to estimate water infrastructure needs. Now, the allotments are based on the service line inventories that utilities submitted to states as part of their requirements under the Lead and Copper Rule Revisions. This data is now driving the best current estimate of total lead pipes in the nation, which has drastically reduced from 9 million to 4 million.
How Did the Funding Change?
Check out the map above to see all the changes since the FY24 allotment.
What happened to all the lead service lines?
EPA uses a formula to determine the allotments, pulling from data submitted by utilities on service line material types and projecting the number of each type in the state. They did make some questionable choices when it came to applying the data to address gaps in the service line inventories. For example:
While fewer lead pipes nationally would be a positive change, this drastic reduction may have unintended consequences if this new total is an underestimate, ultimately making it difficult for water utilities to plan effectively and receive needed funding for replacement.
Go Deeper: Read EPA’s memo on the funding allotments.
Despite a clear legal prohibition of carcinogens in food, several are still permitted, posing a risk to Americans’ health.
By Maria Doa, Ph.D., Liora Fiksel and Emma Barrett
What’s new? A new EDF analysis has found that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows 25 chemicals linked to cancer — or carcinogens — to be used in Americans’ food. These chemicals can be used across the food production chain as ingredients or processing agents, in packaging materials and more, putting the health of consumers and workers at risk.
Our analysis identified 8 known human carcinogens and 17 probable human carcinogens that the FDA allows for use in U.S. food products when they are present in small amounts in other ingredients or in food contact articles approved for use. All 25 substances are recognized as carcinogenic by the congressionally mandated 15th Report on Carcinogens from the National Institutes of Health or by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer.
Why it matters: These substances pose substantial health risks because they are present in one of the most common exposure pathways for ordinary Americans: food. They are not just risky for consumers, but also for every worker involved in getting food to our plates. Let’s highlight a few examples of particular concern:
The law is clear: Cancer-causing chemicals are not allowed in our food. The 1958 Food Additives Amendment gives the FDA authority to regulate food chemicals. Within it, the Delaney Clause explicitly prohibits adding carcinogens to food. In contrast, the regulations FDA derives from the law allow carcinogens to be used if they are either absent from the final product or present only in trace amounts, making their inclusion a deliberate regulatory choice.
The FDA has maintained its approvals for chemicals long known to cause cancer, disregarding its responsibility to protect human health by enforcing regulations aligned with the law. Keeping carcinogens out of U.S. food is a clear mandate of the agency. While the law is straightforward, the FDA’s enforcement of it has been far from it.
Our take: The FDA’s decision to remove cancer-causing food additives should be quick and easy, particularly because safer substitutes are readily available. EDF and others have already petitioned the FDA to act on four cancer-causing substances, including methylene chloride, with no response for more than a year.
The FDA can take years to resolve cases that should be open-and-shut. In January 2025, the agency revoked an authorization for the color additive Red No.3, three years after EDF and partners submitted a petition citing decades of evidence of its carcinogenicity. The FDA’s response to comments on its January 2025 decision made clear that it was rooted in the Delaney Clause. But the slow response left this carcinogen in Americans’ food for three decades too long.
The FDA does not need to wait for groups like EDF to petition it to revoke approvals for carcinogens. The agency already has the legal authority — and responsibility — to keep carcinogenic substances out of U.S. food processing and food; it’s time they use it.
