ACC Asks Congress to Immediately Improve TSCA Program - EHS Daily Advisor

Mar 08, 2025

Updated: Mar 7, 2025

On January 22, 2025, in a House Subcommittee on the Environment hearing, the president of the American Chemistry Council (ACC) urged Congress to immediately make specific improvements to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) program to end industry uncertainty.

The hearing, titled “A Decade Later: Assessing the Legacy and Impact of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act,” had four witnesses:

TSCA directs the EPA to identify and regulate chemicals in commerce that present an “unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment.” The Act governs “chemical substances” and “mixtures” while excluding other items like food, pesticides, and certain chemicals specifically addressed by other statutes. The process under the Act requires the EPA to regulate a particular chemical once it reaches an “unreasonable risk” determination. TSCA grants the EPA broad authority to regulate the manufacture (including importation), processing, distribution, sale, use, and disposal of chemical substances, chemical mixtures, and articles containing chemical substances. The EPA must review existing chemicals to determine whether they present an unreasonable risk by conducting a risk evaluation.

“After years of discussion in Congress around reform, President Obama signed the Frank Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act into law June 22, 2016.The legislation marked the first major overhaul of TSCA since its passage, and it enjoyed bipartisan support,” states the hearing memo. “It included many significant changes to the EPA’s regulation of new and existing chemicals and collection of information.

“Despite these reforms, the EPA has reported difficulty implementing the Lautenberg Act and has struggled to meet statutorily mandated timeframes for both new chemical reviews and risk evaluations for existing chemicals. Manufacturers and processors have also expressed frustration with EPA’s approach to risk evaluations, new requirements governing data manufacturers must submit to EPA, and increased user fees, among other issues.”

Jahn concluded his testimony at the hearing by asking Congress to consider the following recommendations to improve TSCA’s functionality: