President Obama is expected to sign the bill into law, at which point it will regulate an $8 billion industry. The new bill will do nothing to require the FDA to review and regulate the chemicals routinely used in food and cosmetics.
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The measure-H.R. 2576, named for the late Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), a long-time TSCA reform champion-is perhaps the most far-reaching and influential environmental statute passed by Congress since the body updated the Clean Air Act in 1990. “This is long overdue”. It also repeals a long-time requirement that EPA select the “least burdensome” method of regulating a toxic substance. According to an article by The Hill, to date the EPA has regulated only five chemicals under the 40-year-old TSCA. And the bill would require EPA to take tougher action on persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic chemicals, and ensure that chemicals are safe for vulnerable groups such as infants, seniors, and chemical workers. The Company’s more than 6,000 product families are manufactured at 179 sites in 35 countries across the globe.
“Forty years of operating under an outdated law and more than 10 years of attempts at reform have demonstrated that TSCA was in desperate need of improvement”.
Opposition to the bill included Sen. Doing so “detracts from the wider range of priority chemical-specific or analytical issues that, as toxicologists, we address every day”, society President John Morris said in a 23 May letter.
Founded in 1985, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is a nonprofit health organization that promotes preventive medicine, conducts clinical research, and encourages higher standards for ethics and effectiveness in research.
“We thank Senators Udall, Vitter, Inhofe, and Booker for their tremendous work on this bill and we encourage President Obama to sign the Lautenberg Act into law, without delay”.
The chemical bill is “not ideal”, but “meets the high goals set by the administration for meaningful reform”, the White House said in a statement.
“While not ideal, the Lautenberg Act fixes the biggest problems with our current law-by requiring safety reviews for chemicals in use, mandating greater scrutiny of new chemicals before they can be sold, removing the barriers that prevented EPA from banning asbestos and other harmful chemicals, enhancing transparency, and much more”, Denison said. As the House voted 403 to 12 to approve the reform measure, Representative Paul Tonko (D-NY) cited the state preemption provisions as one reason he was voting against the bill.
The EPA, under the bill, would have to consider the impact of a chemical on human health and the environment, as well as the chemical’s benefits and the economic impact of regulation. Presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is more in favor of the EPA as a regulator, but has previously offered harsh criticism of the agency’s current head for its handling of the Flint water crisis and other environmental events.
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States will still have the right to seek a federal waiver to impose their own rules on any given chemical and animal testing will be seriously curtailed under the new law.
