S-697 : Still Just a Bill

Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act

This bill amends the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to revise the regulation of chemicals.

A safety standard is established to ensure that no unreasonable risk of harm to health or the environment will result from exposure to a chemical under the conditions of use. The standard includes the protection of potentially exposed or susceptible populations. The standard does not take cost or other non-risk factors into consideration. The bill repeals the requirement that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) apply the least burdensome means of adequately protecting against unreasonable risk from chemicals.

The bill revises the EPA's authority to require the development of new information about a chemical by establishing a risk-based screening process.

By specified deadlines, the EPA must designate a certain number of existing chemicals as high- or low-priority for safety assessments and determinations and conduct safety assessments and determinations for high-priority chemicals.

The EPA must prohibit or restrict the manufacture, processing, use, distribution, or disposal of a new chemical, or a significant new use of an existing chemical, if the chemical will not likely meet the safety standard, or additional information is necessary to make a safety determination.

If a chemical does not meet the safety standard, the EPA must impose restrictions to assure that it meets the standard, or ban or phase out the chemical when the safety standard cannot be met with the application of those restrictions. In deciding which restrictions to impose, the EPA must take into consideration the costs and benefits of a proposed restriction as well as at least one alternative restriction.

Confidential business information claims to protect information related to chemicals must be substantiated by manufacturers or processors and reviewed by the EPA. The type of information that is protected from disclosure and the duration of the protection are limited.

The bill revises preemption provisions. The preemption of state restrictions on high-priority substances begins once the EPA starts a safety assessment.

The EPA must require manufacturers and processors to pay fees to defray the cost of this bill. The TSCA Implementation Fund is established to receive such fees.

The President must establish an interagency Sustainable Chemistry Program to promote and coordinate federal sustainable chemistry research, development, demonstration, technology transfer, commercialization, education, and training activities.