June 2, 2015
The Honorable Fred Upton
Chairman
Committee on Energy and Commerce
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable Frank Pallone, Jr.
Ranking Member
Committee on Energy and Commerce
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable John Shimkus
Chairman
Subcommittee on Environment and the
Economy
Committee on Energy and Commerce
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable Paul Tonko
Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Environment and the
Economy
Committee on Energy and Commerce
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Chairmen Upton and Shimkus and Ranking Members Pallone and Tonko:
Thank you for your continued work on the TSCA Modernization Act. The new version of
the legislation revealed last week contains several improvements to the original
discussion draft. However, significant flaws in the legislation remain, that we urge you
to address before the bill is brought before the full House.
•
Industry-initiated reviews will overwhelm the program.
The legislation requires EPA to initiate a risk evaluation and complete it within three
years for each and every chemical for which the industry has requested an evaluation. As
drafted, if members of regulated industry request 500 chemical reviews in the first year,
EPA will be obligated to undertake 500 risk evaluations and complete them within three
years. The EPA has no discretion to turn down the request or manage the pace of the
reviews.
This provision all but guarantees that the industry’s agenda for the agency will
overwhelm the agency’s own agenda for chemicals that pose the greatest potential risk to
public health and the environment. The provision allowing the agency to collects fees
from industry for these reviews does not offset this concern. Instead, it could result in
turning the EPA’s chemical program into a fee-for-service provider for the chemical
industry with little if any ability to set an agenda based on public concerns. Moreover,
the bill imposes no enforceable obligation on EPA other than to accept industry’s agenda.
The EPA is fundamentally a public health agency. The bill must give it the discretion to
manage the industry requested evaluations to ensure that public health remains its
priority.
•
“Cost-effectiveness” language needs further clarification.
New language in subsection 6(a) states that a rule to address an unsafe chemical “shall
ensure” that the chemical “no longer presents an unreasonable risk.” This is a welcome
change, although the language could make clearer that “unreasonable risk” excludes cost.
We remain very concerned, however, with the language in subsection 6(c). The language
could leave EPA in a position where it would have to demonstrate to a court that it had
looked at every conceivable “cost-effective” remedy before determining that none would
mitigate the risk. This is especially disturbing given that “cost-effective” is an undefined
term, little used in statute, that could be interpreted to require only consideration of
quantifiable costs and benefits and exclude other important elements of health and
environmental protection.
•
Replacement parts exemption is overbroad.
The previous exemption for automotive replacement parts has been broadened to include
those of any industry and to include parts designed prior to a rule, rather than just those
manufactured prior to a rule. There is also no time limit on the exemption. As written,
any replacement part could be exempted in perpetuity from a rulemaking even when safer
parts that would comply with the rule are feasible and available. This exemption should
at least be narrowed in scope and limited to instances when a safer part is not feasible.
There are additional improvements that could be made to the legislation, including some
referenced by the several Attorneys General in a recent letter.
We hope to work with the committee as TSCA Modernization Act moves through the
legislative process.
Sincerely,
Andy Igrejas
Executive Director
Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
Madeleine Foote
Legislative Representative
League of Conservation Voters
Maureen Swanson
Healthy Children Project Director
Learning Disabilities Association of
America
Mark A. Mitchell M.D., MPH
Chair
National Medical Association Council
on Medical Legislation
Daniel Rosenberg
Senior Attorney
Natural Resources Defense Council
Cindy Luppi
New England Director
Clean Water Action
Lee Anderson
Director of Legislation and Policy
BlueGreen Alliance
Rachel Gibson, JD, MPP
Director, Safer Chemicals Program
Health Care Without Harm
Pamela Miller
Executive Director
Alaska Community Action on Toxics
Rebecca Meuninck
Campaign Director
Michigan Network for Children’s
Environmental Health
Kathleen A. Curtis, LPN
Executive Director
Clean and Healthy New York
Sharyle Patton
Director, Health and Environment
Program
Commonweal Biomonitoring Resource
Center
Alexis Blizman, JD
Policy and Legislative Director
Ecology Center
Kathleen Schüler
Co-Director
Healthy Legacy
Jessica Arons
President and CEO
Reproductive Health Technologies
Project
Ted Schettler MD, MPH
Science Director
Science and Environmental Health
Network
Michael Belliveau
Executive Director
Environmental Health Strategy Center
Laurie Valeriano
Executive Director
Washington Toxics Coalition
cc: members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives