The Environmental Protection Agency would have to review all chemicals before they hit the market, taking into account environmental and health effects, under a long-sought revision of the Toxic Substances Control Act approved by the Senate last week.
Under the 40-year-old law, many products were allowed to be sold without a full review of their environmental and health consequences. Now an amendment to the toxic substances law would require the “EPA to look at what are called ‘conditions of use,’ the range of uses of a chemical, and everything associated with the lifecycle of a chemical,” Environmental Defense Fund Scientist Richard Denison told Civil Eats.
Right now there are 80,000 chemicals regulated by the EPA under the act, but they are not safety-tested for environmental impacts during manufacturing, use or disposal, something the bill will mandate the EPA to do if passed, Civil Eats said.
This step is important in making sure industrial chemicals like perchlorate, used in rocket fuel, don’t contaminate water systems (which happened previously in California and New York), and flame-retardant chemicals don’t end up as furniture coatings.
If the bill, which was approved by the House nearly a year ago, is adopted then it will complement state-level efforts to include the environment in the chemical reviews. President Obama is expected to sign the bill.