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

Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) appreciates the continued progress toward badly needed reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) represented by Tuesday’s passage by the U.S. House of Representatives of H.R. 2576, the TSCA Modernization Act of 2015. The House has continued to work in a bipartisan manner on this legislation, essential to developing reform legislation that can be enacted into law. We appreciate the attention Representatives John Shimkus, Paul Tonko, Frank Pallone and Chairman Fred Upton have given to TSCA reform.

While EDF welcomes the progress the House’s action represents toward updating the nearly 40-year-old TSCA, we believe a final bill will need to make considerably stronger and more comprehensive reforms in order to live up to the promise of fixing the key flaws in current law.

EDF looks forward to working with all Members of Congress to ensure that the final legislation the President signs into law establishes a strong overall system of protection from dangerous chemicals, one that: ensures primary attention is given to the chemicals that EPA determines are of concern to health and the environment; provides for timely safety reviews for all new and existing chemicals against a purely health-based standard; gives EPA strong testing authority; broadens transparency and information access; provides adequate resources; and gives EPA robust authority to regulate chemicals presenting risks to the public.

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

Environmental Defense Fund welcomes today’s announcement that 14 additional Senators – 7 Democrats and 7 Republicans – have cosponsored the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21^st Century Act (S. 697).  This brings the total number of Senators cosponsoring the legislation to 36, more than a third of the full Senate.

The Lautenberg Act would reform our nation’s badly broken 40-year-old chemical safety law, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  The equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans lending their names to this legislation not only affirms strong bipartisan support, but demonstrates Congress’ growing recognition that reform of TSCA is urgent, and that this bill is a solid compromise that represents our best chance in a generation to significantly improve public health protections from toxic or untested chemicals.

Today’s announcement was made possible by a breakthrough in negotiations immediately preceding the April 28 markup of the legislation in the Environment and Public Works Committee, which led the Committee to approve the revised bill on a strong 15-5 bipartisan vote.

Today’s announcement in turn signifies that it is now time to move the legislation to the Senate floor.

Adding their names today to the 22 earlier cosponsors of the Lautenberg Act are:

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

Environmental Defense Fund applauds the enormous progress announced today by Senators on both sides of the aisle to develop and advance bipartisan legislation to reform our nation’s badly broken 40-year-old chemical safety law, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

Today’s announcement is the culmination of two years of tough negotiations led by Senators Tom Udall and David Vitter, who have worked steadfastly to address the concerns of Members and stakeholders. With the agreed-upon changes, the revised bill represents a strong, bipartisan compromise that fixes the major flaws in current law and addresses each of the key concerns raised by Members at the March hearing.

The strong bipartisan support for this manager’s amendment paves the way for the Committee to advance legislation to the Senate floor that can finally bring our chemical safety law into the 21^st century.