Earlier this week, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2576, an update to the long-outdated Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which governs regulation of toxic chemicals.
CPR Member Scholar and University of Richmond Law School professor Noah Sachs and CPR Executive Director Matthew Shudtz wrote a piece for The Hill, highlighting some crucial problems with the bill the House passed.
They note:
Both bills, for example, require EPA to move through the backlog of untested chemicals and make safety determinations. A safety determination is a ruling by the agency about whether the chemical poses ‘unreasonable risk’ to human health or the environment – a first step for further regulatory action.
But astoundingly, the House bill requires the agency to initiate only 10 chemical evaluations per year ‘subject to the availability of appropriations,’ and the Senate bill requires EPA to make these safety determinations for only 25 chemicals over five years.
Worse yet, the key phrase ‘unreasonable risk’ is left undefined in both bills. What that means is that when EPA does get around to taking regulatory action, it will be challenged in court. We will likely see a decade of litigation before the courts sort out the ambiguity and decide how much risk is ‘unreasonable.’
To read the entire piece, click here.
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Erin Kesler | June 26, 2015
Earlier this week, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2576, an update to the long-outdated Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which governs regulation of toxic chemicals. CPR Member Scholar and University of Richmond Law School professor Noah Sachs and CPR Executive Director Matthew Shudtz wrote a piece for The Hill, highlighting some crucial problems with the bill the House […]
Rena Steinzor | June 25, 2015
Anyone who cares about the development of sound public policy has grown distraught over congressional gridlock. The House and Senate are dysfunctional to an extent not seen in modern times. Neither is able to develop bipartisan legislation to deal with a slew of urgent social problems, from immigration and the minimum wage to the strengthening […]
Evan Isaacson | June 24, 2015
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James Goodwin | June 23, 2015
When your public approval rating has hovered at or below 20 percent for the last several years, maybe the last thing you should be doing is maligning other government institutions. That didn’t stop a group of Senators from spending several hours doing just that today during a joint hearing involving the Senate Budget and Homeland […]
Katie Tracy | June 23, 2015
Every day, millions of consumers endure Walmart’s crowded parking lots and cramped aisles for the chance to buy retail goods and groceries at low prices. Perhaps some visitors find value in the prospect of starring in the next caught-on-camera video like last week’s hit filmed at a store in Beech Grove, Indiana. But the lower […]
James Goodwin | June 22, 2015
For decades, so-called regulatory “reformers” have backed up their sales pitches with the same basic promise: Their goal is not to stop regulation per se but to promote smarter ones. This promise, of course, was always a hollow one. But it gave their myriad reform proposals—always involving some set of convoluted procedural or analytical requirements […]
Matt Shudtz | June 22, 2015
Last week, OSHA issued noteworthy citations against a poultry slaughtering facility in Delaware. The agency is using its General Duty Clause to hold Allen Harim Foods in Harbeson, Delaware responsible for ergonomic hazards that plague the entire industry—hazards involving the repetitive cutting and twisting motions that lead to musculoskeletal disorders like tendonitis and carpal tunnel […]
Evan Isaacson | June 22, 2015
Editors’ Note: This is the fourth in a series of posts on measuring progress toward the 2017 interim goal of the Bay TMDL. The first three posts cover the region as a whole, and then Pennsylvania and Virginia. Future posts will explore the progress of the remaining four jurisdictions. […]
Erin Kesler | June 19, 2015
Regular readers of this blog are already well acquainted with her, but for everyone else, CPR is pleased to introduce our new workers’ rights policy analyst, Katie Weatherford. Weatherford joins CPR after several years with the Center for Effective Government, where she was a regulatory policy analyst and advocated for strong regulations to protect public […]