SOCMA Urges Congress To Take Risk-Based Approach To TSCA Reform

The US House of Representatives, and the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA) have urged Congress to avoid sweeping changes to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and to preserve a risk-based approach to chemicals management.

In remarks to a hearing before the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, Beth Bosley, managing director for Boron Specialties in Pittsburgh, PA, said SOCMA recognises that revisions to the decades-old statute are necessary and advocated for a pragmatic approach. SOCMA was the only chemical manufacturing association testifying in defense of the chemical industry.

Bosley, said: “SOCMA agrees that TSCA can be modernised, and that policy goals can be accomplished in a way that doesn’t devastate a strategic American industry that is already fighting recession and foreign competition.”

She told lawmakers that two principles are essential to a sustainable chemical management law that won’t eliminate jobs, economic growth, or products. Bosley said TSCA priorities should be established based on risk – that is evaluation of hazard and exposure.

Bosley said the second principle involves leveraging regulatory mechanism that work such as the Canadian approach, which has systematically prioritised the nation’s inventory and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) New Chemicals Program, which allows the agency to review over 1,000 chemicals each year.

She also pointed to the ‘inventory reset,’ which was part of the EPA’s recently discontinued Chemical Assessment and Management Program (ChAMP). Of the over 80,000 chemicals now listed on the inventory, data suggest that only 1/3 are presently in commerce. The reset would have provided an accurate measure of the number of chemicals in commerce.

“We need to prioritise and categorise the universe of chemicals. ChAMP should not have been abandoned because it will just have to be reinstituted under another name.

“We should recognise the massive amount of data that was generated by EPA’s High Production Volume Program and leverage that data in making initial determinations of risk,” Ms Bosley added.