President Obama Signs TSCA Reform Bill into Law
06/24/2016
On the heels of overwhelming bi-partisan support in the U.S. House and Senate, President Obama signed the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (Lautenberg Act) into law on Wednesday. It marks the first substantive revision of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976, a law that was widely regarded as ineffective during the 40 years since it was enacted. The Lautenberg Act will greatly magnify the authority of the EPA to regulate new and existing chemicals on the market, and give the agency the ability to effectively ban or restrict chemicals it deems unsafe. The law’s passage represents a significant win for environmental and consumer advocates who have fought for decades to improve the safety of chemicals in the products we use and consume every day.
Until now, the TSCA permitted the use of approximately 64,000 chemicals without any safety review, and allowed an estimated 700 to 1,000 new, untested chemicals onto the market each year. The Lautenberg Act requires the EPA to begin evaluating the safety of all new chemicals before they are permitted on the market, and to develop a priority list of existing chemicals which it will begin testing. Among the highest priority chemicals the EPA will begin testing are those which present high risk for water contamination, those with pronounced effects for at-risk populations including pregnant women and children, chemicals known to persist in plant and animal tissues (bioaccumulation), and known carcinogens. The costs for testing chemicals will be assessed to manufacturers, and should a chemical fail to meet the EPA’s safety standard, it may be banned or restricted without regard for the cost to manufacturers.
To some surprise, the Lautenberg Act enjoyed widespread support from both sides of the aisle, as well as from several major chemical manufacturers and distributors. However, several state environmental groups and a handful of Senate Democrats led by Barbara Boxer (D-CA) argued that the Act preempted the ability of the states to establish higher standards of safety for chemicals within their borders. While the Act does preclude states from imposing restrictions or bans on chemicals that the EPA has evaluated and deemed safe – a primary point of contention among opponents of the legislation – it does not preempt or invalidate existing state laws that impose restrictions on chemicals that the states have identified as hazardous. This may inadvertently offer states greater latitude in regulating chemicals, considering the testing and enforcement challenges that lie ahead for the EPA.
Under the provisions of the Lautenberg Act, the EPA is required to publish a list of the chemical substances it plans to test each year. With nearly 80,000 registered chemicals currently on the market, and as many as 2,000 added annually, the EPA faces a monumental task. To make things more difficult, the House Appropriations Committee’s FY2017 spending bill is expected to cut EPA’s annual budget by $164 million over FY2016 to $7.98 billion. Despite the Act's provision for $25 million in annual cost recovery from chemical manufacturers, the EPA faces even tighter budgetary constraints on the number of chemicals it may feasibly test within a given year. States will retain the right to establish chemical safety standards anytime between now and when the EPA selects a chemical for review, without those standards being preempted by federal law. It is not unreasonable to expect an increase in states’ efforts to regulate chemicals before the EPA has the time and resources to begin testing.
Despite its perceived shortcomings, the Lautenberg Act is a giant step forward in protecting our communities and the environment from the potential hazards of chemicals we use every day. For more information, check out this TSCA fact sheet and visit our blog. VelocityEHS will continue to follow developments as the EPA begins to roll out the provisions of the Act, and help you understand what they mean for your organization.
