Providing More Effective Controls Over Toxic Substances

• Once the potential risk of chemical substances has been identified, EPA is authorized to regulate and control the risks of chemicals used in commerce.
• Under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), EPA does not routinely assess the risks of all chemicals, and the agency faces challenges in obtaining the information necessary to do so. (For example, EPA has fully reviewed only 200 of the more than 80,000 chemicals in the TSCA inventory.)
• In effect, the burden of determining that the use of a chemical is unsafe falls squarely on EPA. This contrasts sharply with the European Union's approach, which places primary responsibility on chemical manufacturers to demonstrate their products are safe before they can be used in commerce.
• Congressional committees, environmental organizations, and the chemical industry have been staking out positions in recent years concerning the appropriateness of placing more of the burden on industry to demonstrate a chemical is safe.
• In reports on TSCA, GAO has recommended both statutory and regulatory changes to, among other things, provide EPA with additional authorities to obtain health and safety information from the chemical industry and to shift more of the burden to chemical companies for demonstrating the safety of their chemicals. In part because neither Congress nor EPA has implemented the most important recommendations aimed at providing EPA with the information needed to support its assessments of industrial chemicals, in January 2009, GAO added transforming EPA's processes for assessing and controlling toxic chemicals to our list of high-risk areas needed added attention.

  Highlights of GAO-09-271 (PDF)

^ Back to topWhat Needs to Be Done

• Congress may wish to amend the Toxic Substances Control Act to provide EPA with explicit authority to (1) require chemical companies to conduct chemical testing, (2) require chemical companies to develop test data based on substantial production volume and the necessity for testing, and (3) authorize EPA to share with the states and foreign governments the confidential business information that chemical companies provide to EPA.

  Highlights of GAO-05-458 (PDF)

• EPA should promulgate a rule requiring chemical companies to submit to EPA copies of any health and safety studies, as well as other information that they submit to foreign governments on chemicals that the companies manufacture or process in, or import to, the United States.

  Highlights of GAO-05-458 (PDF)

• EPA should revise its regulations to require that companies reassert claims of confidentiality submitted to EPA.

  Highlights of GAO-05-458 (PDF)

^ Back to topKey Reports

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