WASHINGTON – In a coordinated assault on public health, the Senate introduced a proposal to dismantle the Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA, the nation’s primary defense against hazardous chemicals.
The draft legislation, along with a House bill released in January, would effectively strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its power to keep cancer-causing substances out of cleaning supplies, toys, furniture and other products.
If signed into law, either proposal would undercut core protections against toxic chemicals in consumer products and drinking water. They would open the marketplace to new substances that have not been reviewed for links to reproductive harms, learning disabilities and chronic disease, with no proof they’re safe for children, pregnant people or workers.
By forcing the EPA to speed up chemical approvals and weaken safety requirements, even when corporations provide zero safety data, the legislation would transform the agency into a rubber-stamp office for the chemical industry.
The proposals would:
- Fast-track approval of untested chemicals. Forces the EPA to clear new industrial chemicals within rigid, shortened deadlines, even when manufacturers provide incomplete safety data on cancer risk, reproductive harm or developmental toxicity.
- Leave people and workers exposed. Allows the chemical industry to override independent science and health protections for families, workers and communities.
The chemical industry has spent millions lobbying for weaker regulations. These proposals deliver their wish list: faster approvals, lower safety standards and weakening of the EPA’s power to demand health data before dangerous substances reach consumers.
The Environmental Working Group joins the Alliance for Health and Safe Chemicals in calling on Congress to reject these harmful proposals. Instead, lawmakers should fully implement the bipartisan chemical safety reforms enacted in 2016, ensuring public health protections come before corporate profits.
The Alliance for Health and Safe Chemicals brings together leading organizations and networks in a coordinated effort to defend TSCA from rollbacks and fight for strong health protections from toxic chemicals. The passage of the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act in 2016 with overwhelming bipartisan support modernized TSCA to ensure that new chemicals are reviewed for safety before entering the marketplace and that the EPA can act on dangerous chemicals that harm the health of children, workers and communities.
Since then, the EPA has used this authority to ban deadly asbestos and methylene chloride, restrict cancer-causing chemicals like trichloroethylene, and block certain “forever chemicals” known as PFAS from entering commerce.
The following is a statement from Melanie Benesh, EWG’s vice president for government affairs:
This is a gift for the chemical industry and will not make America healthier.
Members of Congress are working to dismantle a decade of bipartisan progress on public health.
If enacted, this legislation would substantially reduce the EPA’s authority to keep hazardous chemicals out of stores, schools and homes, effectively making American families “lab rats” for industry experiments with substances of unknown toxicity. If Congress moves forward with this legislation, it will abandon the bipartisan commitment to chemical safety grounded in science.
Rolling back safeguards that protect the developing brain and reproductive health and prevent disease in the long-term is not reform. It is a step backward.
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The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.
