Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.
A subcommittee of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing on reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) last week. It’s good to have attention drawn to the issue so early in the new Congress.
But – especially if you missed Senator Lautenberg’s opening statement and the testimony of EPA Assistant Administrator Steve Owens – you may well have come away from the hearing with the impression that TSCA is basically working quite well and really only needs a few tweaks, or what the chemical industry loves to call “modernization.”
Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. This 35-year-old law is not only outdated, it’s proven ineffectual in myriad ways. The false impression that all TSCA needs is a little polishing-up was, unfortunately, bolstered by the invoking of two particularly pernicious myths about TSCA by some of the other hearing witnesses.
The first myth, which I’ll deal with in this post, is that EPA’s new chemicals program has worked very well – so often repeated by some former EPA officials that it has become virtual dogma.
The second myth, which I’ll address in a subsequent post, is that we can confidently rely on existing information to identify all of the chemicals of concern on the market today, and safely set aside the rest. Read More