TSCA Modernization Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey and our ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Committee, Representative Pallone, for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, 40 years ago, Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act, which created a Federal program to manage the risks associated with our Nation's industrial chemicals.

That law, TSCA, has never met that need. As a result, the public has lost confidence in this Federal program. The many failings of the current law have been pointed out in reports, reports issued by the Government Accountability Office and others.

Well-intentioned attempts over the years to address some of the problems administratively or through voluntary agreements amongst the Environmental Protection Agency, the chemical industry, and the environmental and public health communities have failed. The public has too little information about the safety of chemicals that they are exposed to every day in virtually every product that they use.

Even in the face of overwhelming evidence of harm to people's health, EPA is unable to regulate exposure to toxic chemicals. Congress had to step in and explicitly legislate to gain public health and environmental protections from PCBs, for instance, and asbestos.

Because of the regulatory vacuum at the Federal level, some States have legislated to secure protections for their citizens. In some cases, large retailers have initiated their own chemical policies to respond to what are consumers' concerns.

Forty years of ineffective Federal policy is enough. H.R. 2576, the TSCA Modernization Act, amends TSCA and corrects the fundamental flaws that exist in our law.

When my colleague Chairman Shimkus began the effort to reform TSCA in the last Congress, I knew the committee could produce a bill. I believed we could. I was not convinced, however, that we could pass a law; but H.R. 2576 is a decisive step, I believe, in that direction.

I thank Chairman Shimkus, Chairman Upton, and Ranking Member Pallone for their continued cooperation and dedicated effort on behalf of this legislation. This truly has been a productive partnership, and the result is a good bill, a bill that I am pleased to support.

H.R. 2576 is the result of much discussion, much work, and compromise by all parties involved. While no one group gets all that they might have hoped for in this legislation, every stakeholder group gets something that they need. Frankly, we all need a functional, fair, and reliable Federal program of chemical regulation.

Industry gains a fair, predictable Federal program for chemical regulation, a program that will inspire public confidence in the safety of their products. In the context of our global economy, that is an important asset for doing business both here and in other countries.

The public health and environmental communities gain a Federal program in which EPA evaluates chemicals and, based on those evaluations, will act to regulate chemicals the Agency determines present a risk to health or a risk to the environment.

Under current law, in order to regulate a chemical, EPA must demonstrate that the benefits of regulating outweigh the costs. Under H.R. 2576, EPA's evaluation and decision on whether to act will be based solely on risk factors, risk factors alone.

Considerations of cost will be addressed when the Agency selects among different regulatory options to reduce chemical exposures. That is a major gain--a major gain--for public health and a major gain for the environment.

H.R. 2576 is a good bill. It offers significant improvements over our current law. I know many Members have concerns about states' rights and State preemption provisions in TSCA. I share those concerns.

There is State preemption in current law, and there is State preemption in H.R. 2576, but State preemption only occurs when EPA takes final--final--action on a chemical, either finding it safe or regulating its risks.

H.R. 2576 maintains a strong role for the States. With those changes in TSCA, the States will have a more active and credible partner in this effort at the Federal level.

Again, I want to thank Chairman Shimkus, Chairman Upton, and Ranking Member Pallone for their excellent work on this bill. I appreciate the constructive partnership that we formed in working together on this legislation. We worked through many difficult issues and found that common ground.

I look forward to continuing to work together as this bill moves on to the Senate.

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Mr. TONKO. I thank the gentleman.

I urge my colleagues to end the ineffective chemical policy that we have had for four decades and to support H.R. 2576.

I, too, would like to thank some individuals who are very pertinent to this discussion and final product. I thank David McCarthy from the subcommittee staff on the majority side and Jerry Couri from the subcommittee staff, Jackie Cohen from our subcommittee staff on the Democratic side, and Chris Sarley of Chairman Shimkus' personal office staff, and Jean Fruci of my personal staff, the legislative director for my Congressional office.

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