Obstructing Authority: Does the EPA Have the Power to Ensure Commercial Chemicals Are Safe?

Abstract

Before 1976, the U.S. government had virtually no records of what chemicals were imported, manufactured, used, or released into the environment and no way of regulating these chemicals before they appeared on the market. That changed when Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which required that chemical companies inform the EPA of the chemicals they currently used in American products and that they submit approval requests for any new chemical entering manufacture. Thirty years later, however, observers are asking how well TSCA has lived up to its initial promise and what powers the EPA actually has—questions Congress asked the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate. A report released in June 2005 by the GAO titled Chemical Regulation: Options Exist to Improve EPA’s Ability to Assess Health Risks and Manage Its Chemical Review Program claims that the TSCA legislation failed to empower the EPA to ensure the safety of chemicals used in the United States. On 2 August 2006, John B. Stephenson, director of natural resources and environment at the GAO, testified on the report’s findings before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Several other environmental scientists also testified in support of the GAO’s position that TSCA is in need of a major reworking if it is to adequately protect the health of U.S. citizens and the environment. “Overhaul of TSCA is long overdue,” testified Lynn Goldman, former EPA assistant administrator for Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances and now a professor of environmental health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Minus congressional action on TSCA, we will continue to see the erosion of federal management of chemicals on many levels.” Several other experts, however, testified that TSCA has mostly accomplished what it was designed to do. James B. Gulliford, the current EPA assistant administrator for Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, stated, “TSCA provides the agency with the necessary authority to ensure that new chemicals are adequately reviewed, that EPA can require reporting or development of information needed to assess existing chemicals, and that those chemicals that pose an unreasonable risk can be effectively controlled.”