House TSCA Bill Scales Back State Preemption From Senate Alternative

摘要

House lawmakers are floating draft bipartisan legislation to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that significantly scales back preemption of state chemicals programs compared to an alternative pending Senate bill, opening a gap between the two chambers over the issue of preemption that has long hindered approval of a bill. But the House's draft legislation, unveiled April 7 by House Energy & Commerce Committee environment panel Chairman John Shimkus (R-IL), appears to take a similar approach to the Senate bill on other issues such as retaining the current "unreasonable risk" bar EPA would have to meet in determining the safety of chemicals, and removing a mandate that EPA assess the "least burdensome" alternative to restrictions for a substance. The draft bill is available on InsideEPA.com. See page 2 for details. (Doc. ID: 180404) The draft legislation builds off of Shimkus' efforts last Congress to advance a bill, known as the Chemicals in Commerce Act, and is slated for an environment subcommittee hearing April 14.