Shimkus Sponsors Toxic Substances Management Overhaul

Print

Published on May 25 2016 9:22 am
Last Updated on May 25 2016 9:22 am
Written by Greg Sapp

Legislation introduced by Congressman John Shimkus (R, Illinois-15) to update the way the United States assesses and manages the risks posed by chemicals and the products that contain them passed the House Tuesday.

H.R. 2576, the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, is the culmination of a multi-year, multi-Congress effort to enact the first consequential update of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in 40 years. The bipartisan legislation is expected to pass the Senate this week and the White House has said President Obama will sign it into law.

“As a chemical distributor and manufacturer with ties to southern Illinois, we are all too aware that the current TSCA law on the books is outdated and broken,” said Patrick Hawkins, CEO of Hawkins, Inc., which has facilities in Centralia. “We’re glad lawmakers worked in bipartisan fashion to pass a bill that will give Hawkins and the broader chemical industry much-needed regulatory certainty while strengthening government oversight and providing consumers with additional confidence in the safety of chemicals. We look forward to President Obama quickly signing this long-overdue reform into law.”

Cabot Corporation and LyondellBasell Industries, both of which have facilities in Tuscola, also praised the legislation.

Shimkus said modernizing TSCA is necessary to improve protections for public health and the environment, to provide the public greater confidence in the safety of U.S. chemicals, and to promote further innovation and economic growth.

Specifically, the legislation:

--Provides the EPA with more direct tools to obtain testing information on chemical substances – an improvement over the lengthy process they now face.

--Restructures the way existing chemicals are evaluated and regulated – allowing a purely scientific evaluation to guide those decisions.

--Clarifies the treatment of trade secrets submitted to EPA and ensures the Agency uses only high quality science in their decision making.

--Updates the collection of fees needed to support EPA's implementation of TSCA, and

--Organizes the Federal-State regulatory relationship in a way that promotes interstate and global commerce, while recognizing the efforts already taken by several states.