Existing US legislation regulating toxic chemicals has proven an
inadequate tool for protecting the public against chemical risks, a senior
Environmental Protection Agency official told a House panel Thursday.
When the Toxic Chemicals Safety Act was enacted in 1976, it grandfathered
in all 60,000 chemicals then in existence and "never provided adequate
authority for EPA to reevaluate existing chemicals as new concerns arose or
science was updated," Steve Owens, assistant administrator of EPA's chemical
safety and pollution prevention office told the House Energy Committee's
Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection subcommittee.
The act also failed to give the agency "full and complete" authority to
compel companies to provide toxicity data, Owens said. "As a result, in the
34 years since TSCA was passed, EPA has only been able to require testing on
around 200 of the 84,000 chemicals listed on the TSCA inventory. To date, only
five of these chemicals have been regulated under TSCA's ban authority."
Few of the 84,000 chemicals have been studied for their risks to children
and there is no mandatory program to determine the safety of existing
chemicals, he said.
Owens said legislation pending before the subcommittee that would reform
the TCSA would require that all chemicals be reviewed against a safety
standard based on risk-based criteria protective of human health and
environment and would place the burden on industry to demonstrate that
chemicals are safe.
Cal Dooley, president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council, said the
bill (H.R. 5208) as drafted, "promotes unworkable approaches to chemicals
management."
Dooley said the bill "sets such as impossibly high hurdle for all
chemicals in commerce that it would produce technical, bureaucratic and
commercial barriers so significant they would be the law's undoing."
He said that under the proposed bill, when a chemical or mixture is
listed for a safety determination, the manufacturer must show that not only
the company's use of the chemical pose no harm, but that all aggregated
exposures from all other uses of the chemical pose no harm. "It is not clear
to use how any company could actually do that," Dooley said.
The amount of upfront data required before a new chemical can be put on
the market "will effectively discourage the introduction of new chemicals,
including greener chemicals, into commerce in the US," Dooley said. "If EPA
cannot render a timely decision -- and doing so may prove to be an
overwhelming task -- new chemicals would essentially be barred from the US
market."
The agency will have up to one year to approve a new chemical under the
bill, compared to the 90-day period now afforded EPA, he said. "The extended
time cycle just doesn't work with the realities of the marketplace."
Representative Ed Whitfield, Kentucky, the senior Republican on the
subcommittee, said that if the bill passes in its current form it will "help
us lose more jobs in America."
The safety standard "is complex, I'm not sure that any chemical will be
able to meet it," Whitfield said.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman,
Democrat-California, said the bill is workable, but that there is "much work
still be done and I look forward to further constructive conversation with all
of my colleagues. This bill is the right starting point for this
conservation."
inadequate tool for protecting the public against chemical risks, a senior
Environmental Protection Agency official told a House panel Thursday.
When the Toxic Chemicals Safety Act was enacted in 1976, it grandfathered
in all 60,000 chemicals then in existence and "never provided adequate
authority for EPA to reevaluate existing chemicals as new concerns arose or
science was updated," Steve Owens, assistant administrator of EPA's chemical
safety and pollution prevention office told the House Energy Committee's
Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection subcommittee.
The act also failed to give the agency "full and complete" authority to
compel companies to provide toxicity data, Owens said. "As a result, in the
34 years since TSCA was passed, EPA has only been able to require testing on
around 200 of the 84,000 chemicals listed on the TSCA inventory. To date, only
five of these chemicals have been regulated under TSCA's ban authority."
Few of the 84,000 chemicals have been studied for their risks to children
and there is no mandatory program to determine the safety of existing
chemicals, he said.
Owens said legislation pending before the subcommittee that would reform
the TCSA would require that all chemicals be reviewed against a safety
standard based on risk-based criteria protective of human health and
environment and would place the burden on industry to demonstrate that
chemicals are safe.
Cal Dooley, president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council, said the
bill (H.R. 5208) as drafted, "promotes unworkable approaches to chemicals
management."
Dooley said the bill "sets such as impossibly high hurdle for all
chemicals in commerce that it would produce technical, bureaucratic and
commercial barriers so significant they would be the law's undoing."
He said that under the proposed bill, when a chemical or mixture is
listed for a safety determination, the manufacturer must show that not only
the company's use of the chemical pose no harm, but that all aggregated
exposures from all other uses of the chemical pose no harm. "It is not clear
to use how any company could actually do that," Dooley said.
The amount of upfront data required before a new chemical can be put on
the market "will effectively discourage the introduction of new chemicals,
including greener chemicals, into commerce in the US," Dooley said. "If EPA
cannot render a timely decision -- and doing so may prove to be an
overwhelming task -- new chemicals would essentially be barred from the US
market."
The agency will have up to one year to approve a new chemical under the
bill, compared to the 90-day period now afforded EPA, he said. "The extended
time cycle just doesn't work with the realities of the marketplace."
Representative Ed Whitfield, Kentucky, the senior Republican on the
subcommittee, said that if the bill passes in its current form it will "help
us lose more jobs in America."
The safety standard "is complex, I'm not sure that any chemical will be
able to meet it," Whitfield said.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman,
Democrat-California, said the bill is workable, but that there is "much work
still be done and I look forward to further constructive conversation with all
of my colleagues. This bill is the right starting point for this
conservation."
