The Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 Brennan Faust APES

General information Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA) Passed in 1976 under the 94th United States Congress. Two reformed bills were introduced in 2013 and 2015 both of which fixed the major flaws of the law by testing chemicals on the TSCA inventory and to ban the harmful chemicals. The 2013 amendment to the law had large bipartisan support in both the house and senate, while the 2015 amendment has passed in the House but is awaiting a vote in the Senate.

So what does this mean for us? The TSCA gave the EPA the authority to assess and regulate “new chemicals” into the market. A major flaw in the law was that it allowed for potentially harmful chemicals such as asbestos on the market because it fell into the “TSCA inventory” which was just a list that exempted potentially toxic chemicals commercially used before 1976. The law only regulated new chemicals and not the chemicals already on the marketplace.

Through the loophole with Morgan Freeman

So what are the loopholes? The TSCA only gives the EPA additional authority to regulate and test chemicals. A loophole in the law doesn’t require companies to submit health and safety studies. Because of this, the EPA receives less than 50% of toxicity data on new chemicals on human health and only 10% of toxicity data on the environment. Under section 8 of the law, the EPA “may” require companies to hand over unpublished health studies but again this has several loopholes.

Sources http://www.naturalcosmeticnews.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/10/toxic-chemicals.jpg http://www.southeastcoalash.org/wp- content/uploads/2012/05/congress.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_Substances_Cont rol_Act_of_1976#2013 https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-toxic- substances-control-act http://abc7.com/archive/9539109/