Links to essential reading on the Lautenberg Act

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

[NOTE:  THIS POST AND DOCUMENTS TO WHICH IT LINKS HAVE BEEN UPDATED:  PLEASE SEE THIS NEWER POST.]

The full Senate is expected soon to take up and vote on the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (the Lautenberg Act for short, S. 697), the bipartisan TSCA reform legislation introduced in the Senate in March and passed in revised form out of the Environment and Public Works Committee in April.

In anticipation of this, I am posting here an update to a series of blog posts that examine how the Lautenberg Act would address key flaws in the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  I am also posting links to brief and detailed side-by-sides of TSCA and the two bills, and also to two posts that address the contentious issue of preemption of state authority.

These posts compare the Lautenberg Act to current TSCA, and also to the TSCA Modernization Act of 2015, H.R. 2576, the bipartisan legislation introduced in the House in May and passed by the full House in June.

All of these materials (including this post) are available at blogs.edf.org/health.  [SEE UPDATED VERSIONS OF THESE DOCUMENTS HERE.]

• How would TSCA reform legislation address key flaws in TSCA?  Update of our 5-part series on less talked-about but critically important elements of TSCA reform:
  • Enhancing testing authority
  • EPA review of new chemicals
  • How chemicals are selected for safety evaluations
  • Confidential business information
  • Consideration of costs and other non-risk factors

• Comparing the Senate and House TSCA reform legislation: A side-by-side
• And now the gory details: A deep-dive comparison of the Senate and House TSCA reform legislation
• Understanding preemption in the Lautenberg Act
• A mixed bag: Comparing the preemption provisions of the House and Senate TSCA reform bills
• How the Senate and House TSCA reform bills stack up against the Administration’s Principles for TSCA Reform
• We don’t know how many chemicals are in use today. We should know.