By Rachel Gibson

In recent months, Congress has seen substantial progress on bills in both the House and Senate aimed at updating the woefully inadequate Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which has left us largely unprotected from harmful chemicals for the last 40 years. Although the need to reform our outdated chemical safety law is more imperative now than ever before, Health Care Without Harm does not support either bill in its current form. 

While both TSCA bills are flawed, the House bill represents a more workable solution than the Senate bill. The cleaner framework offered by the House provides a better opportunity for strengthening our current chemical safety law.

When TSCA was passed in 1976, over 62,000 existing chemicals were grandfathered under the law. In other words, these chemicals were given a free pass unless the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could determine both that they posed an “unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment” and that EPA was using the “least burdensome” means to protect against the risk. This standard is interpreted so strictly that EPA has successfully restricted only a handful of chemicals over the last 39 years. 

Sustained inaction on chemical safety reform continues to put the health of our entire population at risk. We have strong evidence that exposures to chemicals in the environment, in products, in our food supply, and in our workplaces are causing increases in diseases and conditions such as cancers, birth defects, asthma, and infertility, among other health problems. 

The implications for health care are huge. Every day, patients and workers in the health care setting are exposed to a wide range of chemicals, including cleaners and disinfectants, phthalates in medical devices, flame retardants and formaldehyde in furniture, and solvents and formaldehyde in labs, among others. Many of these products also have life cycle impacts, affecting the workers who manufacture them, as well as the communities that host manufacturing or disposal facilities.

Exposure to these toxic chemicals results in a disease burden that can significantly increase health care costs. While it is difficult to quantify exactly how much money would be saved by updating TSCA, there is considerable agreement that significant reductions in chemical exposures would lead to decreased rates of chronic disease and lower health care costs. Additionally, the failure to regulate chemicals places a significant financial burden on health care by requiring institutions to research the hazards of products and find safer alternatives - responsibilities better suited to those who have complete information on the health and safety of product ingredients.  

In recent months, activity has been heating up in our nation’s capital, with distinct bills making their way through the House and Senate. The Senate bill, S. 697, was approved by the Committee on Environment and Public Works on April 28th of this year, and is currently waiting to head to the Senate floor for a vote. More recently, the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved H.R. 2576 on June 3rd, with a final vote of 47-0 (one abstention). The full House is set to vote on the bill next week.

As Director of Health Care Without Harm’s Safer Chemicals Program, I share the concerns of the vast majority of my environmental health colleagues over flaws in both bills that could undermine this opportunity to modernize our chemical safety law. The Senate bill, in particular, would block states - which have afforded us some of the greatest health protections from harmful chemicals over the last 40 years - from protecting their residents from a toxic chemical while EPA is reviewing it, a process that could take years. While a comprehensive federal program is the ideal outcome, states should continue to be allowed to take action on issues of chemical safety in order to avoid a “regulatory void” that would continue to leave the public unprotected. Under the House bill, states aren’t preempted from action on a chemical unless EPA determines that the chemical is safe or imposes restrictions on it. 

The primary flaw in the House bill is the potential for the chemical industry to determine the majority of the chemicals that EPA reviews. In its current form, the legislation requires EPA to initiate reviews each year on 10 chemicals that may pose a risk to health or the environment. With no cap on industry-initiated chemical reviews, industry requests could easily overwhelm the program, diverting attention away from the most hazardous chemicals. Although the Senate bill has a similar industry-initiated review provision, the number of such reviews is capped as a percentage of the total reviews EPA is undertaking in a given year. 

There are additional limitations with both the House and Senate bills. The inability of EPA to impose fees on industry to pay for chemical assessments and the continued unjustified secrecy around chemical safety information are clear problems with the House bill. The longer list of problems with the Senate bill include the slow pace of chemical reviews, limited authority by EPA to require testing for potentially problematic chemicals, and ability of EPA to set aside “low-priority” chemicals without complete safety assessments. 

While both TSCA bills are flawed, the House bill represents a more workable solution than the Senate bill. The cleaner framework offered by the House provides a better opportunity for strengthening our current chemical safety law.

For up to date information on the status of TSCA legislation, check out the Safer Chemicals Healthy Families website.

Health sector voices - from health system leaders to health-affected populations suffering from chronic disease associated with chemical exposure - have been critical to framing the legislative debate around health. In the health care sector, system leaders have testified before Congress, weighed in with their legislators, passed resolutions in their professional associations, and written letters in support of strong reform. As both bills head toward floor votes in the House and Senate, health care needs to weigh in again to ensure that health is front and center in the final legislation.

Send an email to your Representative in the House, urging your member to prioritize health. You also can make your voice heard on this issue by forwarding this blog to your government affairs staff to make them aware of the problems with the current legislation and asking them to support the improvements noted above. 

Rachel Gibson is the Director of our Safer Chemicals program.