COMING SOON: An effort to weaken our popular chemical safety law

Dear Journalist,

Chemical industry lobbyists are working aggressively to weaken the Toxics Substances Control Act (TSCA) and the regulations and standards to implement the law. We’re expecting a bill from House Republicans in the coming days that could mean a return to many new chemicals being approved to enter the market without sufficient safety data or restrictions to protect health, with weaker protections for workers and communities living near chemical plants and the elimination or delay of rules that reduce exposure to existing toxic chemicals.

TSCA is deeply popular in the U.S.

Our recent polling makes it clear that Americans don't want to return to a time when dangerous chemicals slipped through reviews leading to health risks from our air, homes and schools. TSCA is universally popular, with 82% of Americans favoring the law. And this support cuts across party lines, age, gender and race. 

TSCA helps keep harmful chemicals out of our lives that show up in everyday products and places like cleaning products, electronics, furniture and plastic and it also protects people who live near production facilities where these toxics chemicals are emitted into the air. Recent rules have banned or restricted cancer-causing chemicals like trichloroethylene, methylene chloride and asbestos — protecting millions of workers and families.

Industry is attacking TSCA because it’s working

Today, the improved TSCA is under attack. Despite its success in strengthening chemical safety and starting to reduce long-standing public health risks, industry lobbyists are pushing Congress to weaken the commonsense protections in this hard-won bipartisan law by peddling myths. Now, chemical companies are the only ones asking to re-open this vital law. 

They see a historic opportunity with an industry-friendly Administration to weaken chemical protections both through the regulatory and legislative processes. Industry is using an expiring fee as a “Trojan Horse” to re-open the law. In fact, reauthorization of the fee can happen through a simple appropriations measure and does not require re-opening or reconsidering the law at all. This is not a necessity- it is a political opportunity for companies to once again put profits over people. 

Industry lobbyists claim without evidence that TSCA stifles innovation and delays new chemical reviews. EPA data shows the opposite is true: industry is the primary driver of delays. Truly innovative chemicals are both functional and safe. Toxic “innovations” of the past—like PFAS or “forever chemicals’—continue to harm our environment and health decades after their introduction. Americans continue to pay the price for this harm in healthcare and cleanup costs.

To justify bringing back the 90-day shot clock for chemical reviews, industry wants Congress to believe that EPA takes longer than 90 days to review new chemicals because the Agency is dragging its feet. The fact is industry is responsible for most of the length of the review of a new chemical. Many cases take longer than 90 days (1) because new chemical applicants submit information that should have been included in the initial new chemical submission later in the process and (2) because the submitters frequently object to EPA’s risk determinations and the restrictions it deems necessary to eliminate the unreasonable risk that the new chemical may present.

Exposure to toxic chemicals have huge health risks

Under TSCA, EPA is required to take steps to protect the people most at risk, like kids, workers and people who live near chemical plants. With their reckless agenda and promises to “get out of the way” for data centers, EPA’s proposed rulemakings to lowball the risks and set regulatory safety standards are protective in name only. These unprotective standards will have consequences for our health.

People are often exposed to multiple chemicals—often from multiple sources—that can cause the same health problems. This is especially true in communities where polluting facilities are clustered together. Using release emissions data for 23 of EPA’s high priority toxic chemicals and 5 undergoing prioritization under TSCA, our Chemical Exposure Action Map shows that communities across the country are being exposed to multiple toxic chemicals and their associated health risks in three categories: cancer, developmental harm and asthma.

As you’re crafting stories on the effort to weaken our bedrock chemical safety law, use our tool to see where facilities are polluting these toxic chemicals into our air, water and land and how it’s putting people’s health at risk.

I’d be happy to discuss these issues further and put you in contact with our chemicals policy expert Maria Doa, or Joanna Slaney, our federal advocacy and political affairs lead. Please feel free to contact me. 

 

Sincerely,

Cecile Brown, Communications Director
Healthy Communities, Environmental Defense Fund
[email protected]
(202) 271-6534