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.

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

No one knows how many chemicals are in use today.  It’s a problem that we don’t.

The TSCA Inventory lists about 85,000 chemicals, but because it is a cumulative list that started in 1979, it lists all chemicals that have been in commerce at some point since then.  It is not a list of chemicals currently on the market.

EPA periodically collects information on chemicals produced or imported above a certain volume threshold (currently set at 25,000 pounds per reporting site in the reporting year).  In the most recent data collected in 2012, companies reported producing or importing 7,700 chemicals.  However, given the volume threshold and the several exemptions from reporting requirements, we know this number is a significant underestimate of the number of chemicals in active commerce.

This means that all we know is that somewhere between 7,700 and 85,000 chemicals under TSCA’s jurisdiction are presently in commerce.  I’ve repeatedly heard industry and environmentalists cite each of these numbers in claims they make about how many chemicals are in use today.  The truth, however, clearly lies somewhere within this huge range.   Read More »

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

In September 2009, the Obama Administration issued its Essential Principles for Reform of Chemicals Management Legislation “to help inform efforts underway in Congress to reauthorize and significantly strengthen the effectiveness of TSCA.”  These principles have guided EPA’s testimony and other statements relating to the Senate and House legislative proposals to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act.

Now that the TSCA Modernization Act of 2015 (H.R. 2576) has passed the House of Representatives, and the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (S. 697) is expected to come to the Senate floor in the coming weeks, I’ll use this post to take a look at how each bill stacks up against the Administration’s principles.   Read More »

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

There are some clear similarities, and some clear differences, between the preemption provisions of the TSCA Modernization Act of 2015 (H.R. 2576) and the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (S. 697), the House and Senate TSCA reform bills.  Without getting too far into the weeds, I’ll use this post to compare and contrast these controversial and complex aspects of the legislation.   Read More »

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

Yesterday I posted a side-by-side providing a 35,000-foot-level comparison of how the House’s TSCA Modernization Act of 2015 (H.R. 2576) and the Senate’s Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (S. 697), address the key limitations of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

For those left wanting more, [UPDATED 2-15-16 available here] is a more detailed comparison of the bills relative to TSCA that lines them up on 12 major aspects of reform.

Enjoy!