Rumors have been flying that the Trump administration would take legislative steps to significantly weaken the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the primary federal law that addresses chemical safety, for a while now. After all, gutting TSCA was a clearly stated goal in Project 2025. Plus, it would be another gift to the chemical industry from the industry-smitten EPA, which administers TSCA.
Well, it happened.
The bad bill
A bad bill to amend TSCA was introduced in the House last month. The proposal seeks to undermine TSCA’s ability to protect communities and families, including uniquely vulnerable children, from the kinds of dangerous chemicals that can end up in everything from household products, like furniture, luggage, and electronics, to our air and water.
Now, all hands are needed on deck to stop Congress from touching TSCA. “It’s really critical that TSCA not be reopened and that there should be no changes. It’s important that Congress hear from their constituents that they should not touch this law,” says Eve Gartner, Director of Crosscutting Toxics Strategies at Earthjustice, the environmental law organization.
Tell Congress: Protect Our Families From Harmful Toxic Chemicals
A little history
TSCA, one of the United States’ major environmental statutes, was first passed in 1976. It was pretty ineffective, so environmental groups worked to fix its major limitations, advocating for real improvements. “For example, we didn’t even know how many chemicals were on the market … and there was no mandate to review the safety of any new chemicals coming onto the market,” says Sarah Vogel, Senior Vice President, Healthy Communities, at the Environmental Defense Fund.
A decade-long movement to reform and strengthen TSCA, led initially by late Senator Frank Lautenberg and involving intense legislative negotiation, finally resulted in updated bipartisan legislation in 2016.
“It’s very complicated. TSCA is such a big law,” notes Eve, who adds that while the 2016 reform was imperfect, it added “really significant improvements” for EPA to implement. These are some of the most notable 2016 improvements: new chemicals now require approval before entering the market; existing chemicals already on the market must be retroactively reviewed and proven that they are safe—including known bad actors already in use in 1976, like vinyl chloride and asbestos; and testing, studying, and data are required to show that chemicals don’t present unreasonable risk. Additionally, EPA now has a mandate to consider populations most exposed to and susceptible to harm, including children, those who are pregnant, workers, and communities living near chemical manufacturing plants.
Awareness of TSCA’s history is critical to fight this attempt to weaken it. “It took a long time, a lot of effort. It took compromises to get us to a system that will protect the public’s health, and the industry at that point agreed to it. But now they see such political advantage to completely abandon all of that,” says Sarah.
What’s happening now
The 2016 reforms have never been fully implemented; since then, Trump has been president two times. “During the Biden administration, a lot of energy was spent undoing things that had been done. They only had a limited window… [TSCA] just hasn’t really had enough time with a government that actually wanted to serve the public interest to really know what could happen if this law was fully realized,” says Eve.
And we may never know. Now, under Lee Zeldin’s EPA, the science of risk evaluation is being undermined “in very unprecedented ways,” says Sarah. With everything from formaldehyde to phthalates, EPA is ignoring “massive volumes” of research. The agency is also loosening industry requirements. When it comes to a rule on company reporting about PFAS specifically, “They’ve created so many exemptions that like 97% of those who were supposed to be reporting will be exempted,” she says.
Still, exemptions don’t involve changing the law. The bill now in Congress is an effort to codify EPA’s current approach to TSCA. What’s happening at EPA is detrimental but more easily reversed than a statutory change. “As some of the EPA appointees have said, We’re just lifting the gates. We’re not going to impede innovation. They’ve said they won’t get in the way of any chemical that even touches data centers,” Sarah says.
The backlash isn’t a surprise. In the 10 years since TSCA’s reform, it has been slowly but surely protecting people from chemical exposure. “Some chemicals that were leading to a lot of exposure and disease have been either banned in totality or in significant ways. The reason that the chemical industry wants to reopen it is because EPA’s been using it to regulate chemicals, and they don’t want their chemicals regulated,” says Eve.
Get active to make a difference
Reneging on a decade of compromise, Sarah says, is unacceptable. “Members of Congress need to know that they’re tearing down our protections. This isn’t about speeding innovation, this is about protecting people’s health. They’re making it about making money. You can do both. There’s safer innovation,” she adds.
Now’s the time to demand chemical safety and tell Congress not to touch TSCA. “This is the moment to push EPA to actually implement the law in a health-protective way. People should tell their members of Congress to leave this law alone. We want chemical safety, not a free pass for the chemical industry,” says Eve.
Calling and writing Congress plus submitting comments to EPA can make a huge difference. TSCA was a bipartisan effort. “We know the public strongly supports chemical safety. Nobody wants their children to be poisoned by chemicals. Nobody wants to drink contaminated water, breathe contaminated air,” says Eve, adding, “If the politicians are not serving the people, I think there will be a price that will be paid. We have the law on our side and the fact that we have public opinion on our side ultimately is hopeful.”
Tell Congress: Protect Our Families From Harmful Toxic Chemicals