When Barack Obama took office, reform of U.S. chemical regulation appeared to be an area of some bipartisan agreement, especially when compared to climate change, where it was clear a contentious fight would loom on Capitol Hill. Prominent Members of Congress had called for reform of the outdated Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson soon laid out the Administration’s key principles for TSCA reform, and the largest chemical industry trade association acknowledged that TSCA needed to be “modernized” and “updated.”
Four years later, though, progress on TSCA reform has been frustratingly slow. The 2010 Republican victory in the House dashed hopes for quick action on the Hill, and the chemical industry is once again defending the status quo.
The stakes are enormous. Under TSCA, more than 90% of all chemicals in use have never been tested for their health and environmental effects. TSCA requires the EPA to demonstrate that chemicals pose “unreasonable risk” prior to restricting their manufacture or use, and it erects elaborate procedural hurdles before EPA can make that finding. Since TSCA was enacted, EPA has attempted to restrict only six chemicals under those provisions of the Act, and the last attempt was in 1989.
We are “flying blind” by allowing massive public exposure to untested chemicals. As a result of flaws in TSCA, we also lack solid comparative information about the toxicity of chemicals. For example, while many companies have stopped using Bisphenol-A (BPA) in baby products and food containers, we have little information about substitutes for BPA, and companies are not required to disclose what substitutes they are using. From hydraulic fracturing fluids to flame retardants in furniture to construction materials in our homes, we simply do not know the health and environmental effects of tens of thousands of chemicals to which we are exposed.
TSCA reformers are now focused on the Safe Chemicals Act of 2011, a major overhaul of TSCA sponsored by Senator Frank Lautenberg. The 2012 election could easily decide the fate of the legislation.
The Safe Chemicals Act overhauls TSCA by requiring chemical manufacturers to generate a minimum safety data set for each chemical they produce and empowering EPA to force dangerous chemicals off the market. Most importantly, for chemicals suspected to be high-risk, the bill would shift the burden to manufacturers to demonstrate that the chemical poses a "reasonable certainty of no harm" before the chemical can enter the market. Chemicals already in use can also be pulled off the market if a manufacturer cannot prove that the product meets the safety standard. This structure takes the burden away from EPA to prove “unreasonable risk.”
The Safe Chemicals Act is the best vehicle in years for a comprehensive reform of TSCA to protect public health, and last July, the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works approved the bill in a strict party-line vote. In drafting the bill, Senator Lautenberg engaged in a lengthy dialogue with industry leaders and GOP Senators, and the bill has picked up notable support from health insurers, nurses, and hospital chains.
Will the Safe Chemicals Act ever attract Republican support? That depends on the stance of the chemical industry and whether certain provisions of the bill can be modified to mollify opposition. If President Obama is elected, he would have to push much more vocally for chemical regulatory reform, which has not been a White House priority to date. In 2010, the President’s Cancer Panel released a major report calling for TSCA reform and for shifting the burden of proof on chemical safety. Obama’s EPA has also made some needed administrative changes in its implementation of TSCA. But the legislative overhaul needed to reform this outdated statute has been elusive.
As for Mitt Romney, he has not taken any public stance on chemical regulation, TSCA reform, or the Safe Chemicals Act. He has, however, frequently criticized environmental regulation as excessive, and it is doubtful that he would support the Act unless the chemical industry first gets on board. This is one example of where opposition to new environmental regulation simply leaves a flawed, outdated, ineffective regulation in place.
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| September 6, 2012
When Barack Obama took office, reform of U.S. chemical regulation appeared to be an area of some bipartisan agreement, especially when compared to climate change, where it was clear a contentious fight would loom on Capitol Hill. Prominent Members of Congress had called for reform of the outdated Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976, […]
Ben Somberg | September 6, 2012
Mitt Romney added a new twist Tuesday to false right-wing claims about the EPA’s regulation limiting mercury and other pollutants from coal power plants. EPA estimated that the “utility MACT” will have annual monetized benefits of $37-90 billion and costs of $9.6 billion. A critique we’ve heard over and over again from the industry and its supporters […]
Daniel Farber | September 5, 2012
Ben Somberg posted here recently about the Republican platform and the environment. He noted that the platform uses a discredited estimate of regulatory costs, calls for making environmental regulations into guidance documents for industry, and proposes a moratorium on new regulations for the indefinite future. Unfortunately, that’s only the tip of the iceberg. If you can […]
David Driesen | August 30, 2012
Reposted from RegBlog. Traditionally, the field of law and economics has treated government regulation as if it were a mere transaction. This microeconomic approach to law assumes that government regulators should aim to make their decisions efficient by seeking to equate costs and benefits at the margin. As I argue in a new book, The Economic […]
Robert Verchick | August 28, 2012
NEW DELHI — Here’s what monsoon season looks like in India. This summer, the northern states have been lashed with rain. In the northeastern state of Assam, July rains swamped thousands of homes, killing 65 residents. Floods and mudslides in northeast India sent nearly 6 million people heading for the hills in search of temporary […]
Ben Somberg | August 27, 2012
A draft of the Republican party platform, posted by Politico on Friday afternoon, reveals that the party has incorporated some of the more absurd claims and proposals on regulations pushed by House Republicans and some more radical trade organizations. The draft claims regulations cost $1.75 trillion each year – that’s from a discredited study sponsored […]
| August 24, 2012
Today CPR releases a new briefing paper explaining how states can spearhead improving energy efficiency standards for home appliances. The paper, States Can Lead the Way to Improved Appliance Energy Efficiency Standards, draws on ideas discussed in Alexandra B. Klass’s article State Standards for Nationwide Products Revisited: Federalism, Green Building Codes, and Appliance Efficiency Standards. […]
Frank Ackerman | August 23, 2012
Cross-posted from Triple Crisis. Can we protect the earth’s climate without talking about it – by pursuing more popular policy goals such as cheap, clean energy, which also happen to reduce carbon emissions? It doesn’t make sense for the long run, and won’t carry us through the necessary decades of technological change and redirected investment. […]
Joseph Tomain | August 23, 2012
Based on what the Romney-Ryan team has said so far on energy, I expected their energy plan today would be something like the National Energy Policy of 2001, delivered by Vice President Dick Cheney four months after George W. Bush’s inauguration. I thought that their energy plan would simply be a retread of old thinking, […]