Businesses Need the Reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act
Dear Legislator,
The undersigned business leaders strongly support legislation that fundamentally reforms the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Comprehensive TSCA reform is good for business. It will increase consumer confidence, expand markets, create new jobs, and make U.S. businesses more competitive in the global marketplace. Designing new chemicals to be inherently safer from the outset reduces the costs of regulation, hazardous waste storage and disposal, worker protection, and future liabilities. As business owners, executives, professionals and investors we urge you to support a TSCA reform bill that provides the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the authority to:
• Require chemical manufacturers to develop and submit hazard, use, and exposure data on chemicals in commerce, and allow EPA to make such data readily available to the public.
• Take immediate action to reduce the use of persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemicals and other chemicals of very high concern.
• Clearly identify chemicals of high and low concern to human and environmental health based on robust information.
• Require greater disclosure of chemicals of high concern in products.
• Promote safer alternatives.
Revisions to TSCA will need to prevent abuse of Confidential Business Information (CBI) protection provisions, while still retaining protection of CBI for legitimate business needs. In addition, TSCA reform should strive as much as possible to harmonize compliance criteria and processes with similar existing regulatory frameworks that have proven to be successful in minimizing adverse impact to human health and the environment while promoting innovation of safer alternatives. Together, these elements of comprehensive TSCA reform will create an effective and trusted regulatory system that enhances the value of products across supply chains and supports a healthy economy.
