House Advances TSCA Reform Bill

One amendment offered by Mr. Tonko offered technical changes only.  The new draft contains some changes in areas like preemption and deadlines for EPA action from the discussion draft that he released last month.  The TSCA Modernization Act aims to address TSCA’s shortcomings, which hasn’t been updated in several decades.  The three basic goals of the reform measure are to modernize the decades-old TSCA to improve chemical safety while encouraging continued innovation and economic growth, provide the public greater confidence in the safety of American-made chemicals and the products that contain them, and facilitate interstate and global commerce.  Some reforms would include creating a new system for EPA to evaluate and manage risks associated with chemicals already on the market, setting deadlines for EPA to take action including risk evaluations must be completed within three years and risk management rules must follow completion of risk evaluations by 90 days.  The bill would also ensure user fees paid to EPA for specific purposes are used just for those purposes.  One of the most contentious issues involved limited preemption of state law which was modified allowing prior state laws to be preserved as long as they did not conflict with TSCA and to allow private rights of action under tort or contract law.

The Senate version of TSCA reform – S.697, introduced by David Vitter (R-LA) earlier this year now has 39 co-sponsors consisting of an almost equal balance of Republicans and Democrats.  Of particular note, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) joined the bill bringing along a stalwart environmentalist to support the bill. It looks as if Senator Vitter is coming very close to reaching a veto-proof majority for his bill.  Each chamber is working with one another to ensure the two bills are very close in scope and do not include any obstacles that would doom the bill in conference.