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95–937 PDF 2015

H.R. lll, THE TSCA MODERNIZATION ACT 

OF 2015 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND THE 

ECONOMY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND 

COMMERCE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

APRIL 14, 2015 

Serial No. 114–30 

( 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce 

energycommerce.house.gov 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE 

FRED UPTON, Michigan 

Chairman 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

Chairman Emeritus 

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

Vice Chairman 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey 

BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

DAVID B. MCKINLEY, West Virginia 

MIKE POMPEO, Kansas 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

BILLY LONG, Missouri 

RENEE L. ELLMERS, North Carolina 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

BILL FLORES, Texas 

SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana 

MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma 

RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina 

CHRIS COLLINS, New York 

KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey 

Ranking Member 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

ANNA G. ESHOO, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

LOIS CAPPS, California 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

BEN RAY LUJA ́ N, New Mexico 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky 

YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

KURT SCHRADER, Oregon 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, III, Massachusetts 

TONY CA ́ RDENAS, California 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND THE ECONOMY

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

Chairman 

GREGG HARPER, Vice Chairman 

Vice Chairman 

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

DAVID B. MCKINLEY, West Virginia 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

BILL FLORES, Texas 

RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina 

KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota 

FRED UPTON, Michigan (ex officio) 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

Ranking Member 

KURT SCHRADER, Oregon 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

LOIS CAPPS, California 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

TONY CA ́ RDENAS, California 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey (ex 

officio) 

(II) 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hon. John Shimkus, a Representative in Congress from the State of Illinois, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 1 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 2 

Hon. Paul Tonko, a Representative in Congress from the State of New York, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 3 

Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 19 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 20 

Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the State of 

New Jersey, opening statement .......................................................................... 20 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 22 

WITNESSES

Hon. James Jones, Assistant Administrator, Office of Chemical Safety and 

Pollution Prevention, Environmental Protection Agency ................................. 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 8 

Michael P. Walls, Vice President, Regulatory and Technical Affairs, American 

Chemistry Council ................................................................................................ 41 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 44 

Beth D. Bosley, President, Boron Specialties, LLC, on Behalf of the Society 

of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates ......................................................... 48 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 50 

Jennifer Thomas, Senior Director, Federal Government Affairs, Alliance of 

Automobile Manufacturers .................................................................................. 56 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 58 

Andy Igrejas, Director, Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families ................................ 66 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 68 

SUBMITTED MATERIAL

Discussion draft, H.R. lll, the TSCA Modernization Act of 2015, submitted by Mr. Shimkus ........................................................................................ 81 

Letter of April 14, 2015, from Ernest S. Rosenberg, President and Chief 

Executive Officer, American Cleaning Institute, to Mr. Shimkus and Mr. 

Tonko, submitted by Mr. Shimkus ..................................................................... 111 

Letter of April 14, 2015, from Scott Faber, Vice President of Government 

Affairs, Environmental Working Group, to Mr. Shimkus and Mr. Tonko, 

submitted by Mr. Shimkus .................................................................................. 113 

Letter of April 14, 2015, from Jason Grumet, President, Bipartisan Policy 

Center, to Mr. Upton, et al., submitted by Mr. Shimkus ................................. 115 

Letter of April 13, 2015, from Norbert E. Kaminski, President, Society of 

Toxicology, to Mr. Shimkus and Mr. Tonko, submitted by Mr. Shimkus ....... 116 

Letter of April 14, 2015, from Linda A. Lipsen, Chief Executive Officer, 

American Association for Justice, to Mr. Shimkus and Mr. Tonko, submitted by Mr. Shimkus ........................................................................................ 119 

Testimony of Dr. Paul A. Locke, Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins 

Bloomberg School of Public Health, April 14, 2015, submitted by Mr. 

Shimkus ................................................................................................................ 121 

Letter of April 14, 2015, from Andrew N. Liveris, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dow Chemical Company, to Mr. Upton, submitted by Mr. 

Shimkus ................................................................................................................ 123 

(1) 

H.R. lll, THE TSCA MODERNIZATION ACT 

OF 2015 

TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 2015 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND THE ECONOMY, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:15 a.m., in room 

2322 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John Shimkus 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Members present: Representatives Shimkus, Harper, Latta, 

McKinley, Johnson, Bucshon, Flores, Hudson, Cramer, Upton (ex 

officio), Tonko, Schrader, Green, DeGette, Capps, McNerney, 

Ca ́ rdenas, and Pallone (ex officio). 

Staff present: Charlotte Baker, Deputy Communications Director; 

Leighton Brown, Press Assistant; Noelle Clemente, Press Secretary; Jerry Couri, Senior Environmental Policy Advisor; David 

McCarthy, Chief Counsel, Environment and the Economy; Tim 

Pataki, Professional Staff Member; Tina Richards, Counsel, Environment and the Economy; Chris Sarley, Policy Coordinator, Environment and the Economy; Jessica Wilkerson, Legislative Clerk; 

Jacqueline Cohen, Democratic Senior Counsel; Rick Kessler, Democratic Senior Advisor and Staff Director, Energy and the Environment; and Ryan Schmidt, Democratic EPA Detailee. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The committee will come to order. 

Before I start with my opening statement, I want to recognize my 

classmate and my friend, Lois Capps, who has announced her retirement, although I imagine she will be a pain in our side for 

about a year and a half yet, so a very nice thing. So I will recognize 

myself for 5 minutes for an opening statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN SHIMKUS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS 

Today marks an important milestone in our effort to modernize 

TSCA. The more we work together, Member to Member, on a bipartisan basis, the more we understand each other and how much we 

hope to accomplish. Our subcommittee has put in a lot of hours on 

TSCA over the past couple years, and actually I would say the past 

couple weeks, and that effort, we believe, is about to pay off. It is 

gratifying to work directly with Members on both sides of the aisle 

who bring so much dedication to the task. 

A week ago we unveiled the bill before us today. Besides the bill 

language itself, that announcement carried a couple other important messages. First, Members have been working together diVerDate Mar 15 2010 09:35 Aug 31, 2015 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\114THCONGRESS\114X30XTSCA2015\114X30XTSCA2015XWORKING WAYNE
2 

rectly, challenging each other to find common ground, and discovering that we share many policy objectives. Let’s talk about some 

of those policy objectives. 

First, I think we all want EPA to do objective, science-based examinations on some of the chemicals that are already on the market. EPA already has some of these in mind to evaluate because 

EPA thinks they have potential for unreasonable risk of injury to 

human health and the environment. Meanwhile, if manufacturers 

want to take a proactive approach and ask the Agency to perform 

a risk evaluation, we are OK with that as long as it meets the 

same rigorous science requirements as the ones EPA itself initiates, and the manufacturer is willing to pay the EPA administrative costs of performing the work. 

We also want to continue protecting confidential business information, but for CBI claims made after our bill becomes law, we 

would like manufacturers to reestablish those claims at least once 

every 10 years. We think EPA should be allowed to mandate testing on a chemical in order to complete a risk evaluation, since the 

risk evaluation step is new to TSCA. 

These are just a few of the provisions that appear in the discussion draft. I think we also agree that the process is, and should be, 

moving forward. Leading Members on both sides are committed to 

that momentum. We will listen carefully to stakeholders on what 

they like in the draft, and we welcome suggestions they have for 

improvement. We will collect those comments and then we will sit 

down as a subcommittee and make decisions. Members should plan 

on a subcommittee markup about a month from now on May 14th. 

To facilitate our work, we will publish a revised bill text reflecting consensus revisions in time to use as the subcommittee markup 

vehicle, and I will be asking Chairman Upton to schedule it for full 

committee consideration as soon as practicable after the subcommittee has done its work. 

I thank all of the witnesses today for their willingness to participate. Assistant Administrator Jim Jones, you are no stranger to 

this committee. Your agency has already offered some informal 

technical assistance for which we are grateful, and we expect to 

continue working with you on it until the final version passes both 

bodies of Congress and is signed by the President. 

We also welcome our second panel of witnesses. You are all also 

friends to this committee, and we have been grateful for your perspectives in the past. We look forward to hearing from you on this 

fresh new approach. 

Finally, I thank Chairman Upton for his full support on this bill, 

and my friends, Paul Tonko and Frank Pallone, and the subcommittee members and I would say the subcommittee staff on 

both sides for all their active participation and partnership in this 

project. Let’s all keep working together to get this vitally important 

legislation enacted. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Shimkus follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN SHIMKUS

The subcommittee will come to order. Today marks an important milestone in our 

effort to modernize TSCA. The more we work together, Member to Member, on a 

bipartisan basis, the more we understand each other and how much we can accomVerDate Mar 15 2010 09:35 Aug 31, 2015 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\114THCONGRESS\114X30XTSCA2015\114X30XTSCA2015XWORKING WAYNE
3 

plish. Our subcommittee has put in a lot of hours on TSCA over the past couple 

years, and that effort is about to pay off. It’s gratifying to work directly with Members on both sides of the aisle who bring so much dedication to the task. 

A week ago we unveiled the bill before us today. Besides the bill language itself, 

that announcement carried a couple other important messages. First, Members have 

been working together directly, challenging each other to find common ground, and 

discovering that we share many policy objectives. 

Let’s talk about some of those policy objectives. First, I think we all want EPA 

to do objective, science-based examinations of some of the chemicals that are already 

on the market. EPA already has some of these in mind to evaluate because EPA 

thinks they have potential for unreasonable risk of injury to human health or the 

environment. 

Meanwhile, if manufacturers want to take a pro-active approach and ask the 

Agency to perform a risk evaluation, we are OK with that as long as: 

• It meets the same rigorous science requirements as the ones EPA itself initiates; 

and 

• The manufacturer is willing to pay the EPA administrative cost of performing 

the work. 

We also want to continue protecting confidential business information but for CBI 

claims made after our bill becomes law, we’d like manufacturers to reestablish those 

claims at least once every 10 years. 

We think EPA should be allowed to mandate testing on a chemical in order to 

complete a risk evaluation, since the risk evaluation step is new to TSCA. 

These are just a few of the provisions that appear in the discussion draft. 

I think we also agree that the process is, and should be, moving forward. 

Leading Members on both sides are committed to that momentum. 

We’ll listen carefully to stakeholders on what they like in the draft and we welcome suggestions they have for improvement. We’ll collect those comments and then 

we’ll sit down as a subcommittee and make decisions. 

Members should plan on a subcommittee mark up about a month from now on 

May 14th. To facilitate our work, we’ll publish a revised bill text reflecting consensus revisions in time to use as the subcommittee mark-up vehicle. And I’ll be 

asking Chairman Upton to schedule it for full committee consideration as soon as 

practicable after the subcommittee has done its work. 

I thank all of the witnesses today for their willingness to participate. Assistant 

Administrator Jim Jones, you are no stranger to this committee. Your agency has 

already offered some informal technical assistance for which we are grateful. And 

we expect to continue working with you on it until the final version passes both bodies of Congress and is signed by the President. 

We also welcome our second panel of witnesses. You are all also friends to this 

committee, and we’ve been grateful for your perspectives in the past. We look forward to hearing from you on this fresh new approach. 

Finally, I thank Chairman Upton for his full support on this bill, and my friends, 

Paul Tonko and Frank Pallone, and subcommittee members on both sides for their 

active partnership in this project. 

Let’s all keep working together to get this vitally important legislation enacted. 

[Discussion draft H.R. lll appears at the conclusion of the 

hearing.] 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And with that, I yield back my time and yield 5 

minutes to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Tonko. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL TONKO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I certainly appreciate the 

tone. I value the friendship and partnership we have in serving 

this committee. 

Good morning to each and every one of our witnesses and to my 

fellow panelists here. Thank you, Chair Shimkus, for calling this 

important hearing, this very important hearing. 

Our subcommittee spent a good deal of time on the Toxic Substances Control Act in the last Congress. We had a number of very 

good hearings covering many of the provisions of the current law, 

4 

and although we did not get to an agreement, the exercise provided 

the members of this subcommittee with a much better understanding of the current law and its associated shortcomings. It is 

a new Congress. We have another opportunity to develop a bill to 

address the key problems with current law. 

For much of the past 37 years, TSCA served the industry well, 

but I would caution that TSCA needs to be balanced. It needs to 

serve all perspectives well. Existing chemicals remain on the market, and new chemicals entered commerce through a limited review 

process that does not require licensing or compel the production of 

minimal data sets. Information provided by chemical manufacturers could be labeled as confidential business information with less 

review of whether the CBI claims were justified or not. Even in the 

face of strong evidence that a chemical substance indeed presented 

a significant risk, the Environmental Protection Agency was unable 

to act. 

For all practical purposes, TSCA has no enforceable safety standard. Under the law’s standard of unreasonable risk and the requirement to produce substantial evidence, the burden of proof of 

harm as interpreted by the courts is too high to enable EPA to address even well-characterized risks. In addition, the Agency has insufficient resources and little authority to require manufacturers to 

produce information for an adequate evaluation of those chemical 

risks. This is especially true for thousands of older chemicals that 

remained in commerce with no evaluation from the time the law 

was passed to the present moment. 

The overriding problem with TSCA is that the public has no confidence in this Federal program. As a result, the public does not believe that the presence of a chemical in the marketplace has any 

relationship to its safety. That is not good for industry and it is not 

good for the public. The Federal program must have credibility. 

The discussion draft that is the subject of today’s hearing represents a significant departure from the proposal offered by Senator Vitter and Senator Udall, and I believe that is an important 

step here in this House. It is also different from the approach 

taken in the House last year. So I believe that this draft has a 

number of benefits relative to these two other proposals, and that 

is a very beneficial thing in this process. 

I want to commend the Chair for working with us and demonstrating a desire to discuss and address concerns raised by 

Democratic members and by different stakeholders and interest 

groups. I appreciate and applaud the Chair’s decision to narrow the 

scope of this effort and to focus on the key problems with TSCA. 

Again, I appreciate the partnership and the friendship, but there 

is much more work to do, and I am prepared to work with you as 

are the other members of our subcommittee, Mr. Chair. My hope 

is that we can produce a bill that all members of our subcommittee 

can support, one that truly can become law. If we are to do that, 

the final product must reflect compromise and gain the support of 

a broad coalition representing all of the major stakeholder groups 

and it must have the support of the administration. I believe we 

can get there and that this discussion draft makes a great start toward the goal of passing a law but I do not want to mislead anyone. There are still some tough issues to address. A new TSCA 

5 

must do more for public health and the environment than the current law. It must preserve State authority to act to protect their 

citizens in the absence of meaningful Federal action, and changes 

in policy alone will not be enough. The Agency must have adequate 

resources by which to fulfill its obligation to the public and to the 

regulated community. A reformed TSCA should generate more innovation, not more litigation. 

I want to thank all of our witnesses who are participating in today’s very important hearing. Your input on this draft legislation 

will be very important to our efforts as we move forward, and 

again, I would like to thank you, Mr. Chair, and commend you for 

tackling this important and very challenging issue. It is not easy. 

I look forward to working with you and the other members of this 

subcommittee to complete this very important task. 

And with that, I yield back. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time, and you 

know, without objection, what I would like to do, Mr. Jones, is 

allow you to go for 5 minutes, and then when Chairman Upton and 

the ranking member come, after that we will let them give their 

opening statements, and with that, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES JONES, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF CHEMICAL SAFETY AND POLLUTION 

PREVENTION, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY 

Mr. JONES. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Shimkus, 

Ranking Member Tonko, and other members of the subcommittee. 

I appreciate the opportunity to join you today to discuss the muchneeded reform of chemicals management in the United States and 

the opportunity to engage early on the recently released discussion 

draft, the TSCA Modernization Act of 2015. 

As you know, chemicals are found in almost everything we buy 

and use. They contribute to our health, our well-being and our 

prosperity. However, we believe it is essential that chemicals are 

also safe. 

TSCA gives the EPA the jurisdiction over chemicals produced, 

used, and imported into the United States. However, unlike laws 

applicable to pesticides and drugs, TSCA does not have a mandatory program that requires EPA to conduct a review to determine 

the safety of existing chemicals. In addition, TSCA places burdensome legal and procedural requirement on the EPA before the 

Agency can request a generation and submission of health and environmental effects data on existing chemicals. As a result, in the 

more than 3 1⁄2 decades since the passage of TSCA, the EPA has 

only been able to require testing on a little more than 200 of the 

original 60,000 chemicals listed on the TSCA inventory and has 

regulated or banned only five of these chemicals under TSCA Section 630, the last of which was in 1990. In the 25 years since, the 

EPA has largely relied on voluntary action to collect data and address risks. 

In the absence of additional Federal action, an increasing number of States are taking actions on chemicals to protect their residents, and the private sector is making their own decisions about 

6 

chemicals to protect their interest and to respond to consumers, it 

is clear that even with the best efforts under current law and resources, we need to update and strengthen TSCA and provide the 

EPA with the appropriate tools to protect the American people 

from exposure to harmful chemicals. 

The EPA believes that it is critical that any update to TSCA include certain components. In September 2009, the administration 

announced a set of six principles to update and strengthen TSCA. 

While the administration does not have a position on the discussion draft, there are several important observations that I would 

like to offer. 

The discussion draft provides the EPA with more effective authority to compel the generation of health and safety data on existing chemicals. The discussion draft should give the EPA authority 

to set priorities for conducting safety reviews on existing chemicals 

based on relevant risk and exposure considerations. The draft includes two means by which risk evaluations could be initiated for 

existing chemicals. The first is that EPA would be required to conduct a risk evaluation upon a finding that the combination of hazard from and exposure to a particular chemical substance has the 

potential to create an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the 

environment. The second allows for a chemical manufacturer to request that EPA conduct a risk evaluation for a particular chemical 

substance. In practice, this would likely lead to EPA focusing the 

majority of its limited risk evaluation resources on completing evaluations for chemical substances requested by industry, which, once 

requested, start the clock ticking on a number of deadlines. This 

could result in evaluations for the chemicals with the most potential for risk being put off indefinitely while EPA works on the evaluations requested by industry. Additionally, the requirement that 

EPA make an affirmative finding of the potential for unreasonable 

risk, prior to initiating a risk evaluation, creates a possible analytical catch-22 in which EPA must make a finding regarding the potential for risk prior to beginning the risk evaluation process. I 

note that once the EPA is able to conduct an evaluation that finds 

risk, the discussion draft appears to impose rigorous deadlines for 

taking regulatory action to reduce those risks. However, in many 

cases the deadlines in the draft are unreasonably short. 

The use of TSCA section 6 to limit or ban a chemical that poses 

a significant risk has been a major challenge. The discussion draft 

clearly removes TSCA’s requirement that the EPA demonstrate it 

is using the least burdensome requirements needed to provide adequate protection. The draft appears consistent with Principle 1 in 

that it specifies that risk assessments should include consideration 

of information on potentially exposed populations but not information on cost and other factors not directly related to health or the 

environment. The discussion draft, however, is ambiguous on how 

EPA is to incorporate cost and other factors into a risk-management rule under section 6(a). 

In the current discussion draft, the cap on fees is eliminated; 

however, there are not provisions that ensure EPA will be given a 

sustained source of funding for implementation, as articulated in 

Principle 6. The discussion draft is consistent with the administration principles in the area of transparency and availability of inforVerDate Mar 15 2010 09:35 Aug 31, 2015 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\114THCONGRESS\114X30XTSCA2015\114X30XTSCA2015XWORKING WAYNE
7 

mation on chemicals, including giving the EPA the ability to share 

chemical data with State, local, and tribal governments. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you again for your leadership on TSCA reform. I will be happy to answer any questions you or other members have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Jones follows:] 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you very much for your opening statement, 

and I appreciate the comments. I would like to turn to Chairman 

Upton and thank him for his friendship and support as we move 

forward, and you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN 

Mr. UPTON. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It is today an important milestone as we work to bring our chemical safety laws into the 21st century, and I thank Chairman 

Shimkus for his bipartisan member-to-member work bringing this 

legislation before the subcommittee. I also commend the ranking 

member of the full committee, Mr. Pallone, for collaborating across 

the aisle to develop a proposal that in fact we can all embrace. 

We have heard from a diverse cross-section of stakeholders that 

TSCA needs modernizing. When first enacted nearly four decades 

ago, the structure was a bit of an experiment. When our predecessors on this committee designed TSCA, they were clearly attempting to reconcile diverse points of view within Congress and 

with the American public. But our challenge today is the same, but 

now we have the benefit of experience. Our witnesses include the 

administration’s main point person on chemical regulation, industry experts with global regulatory experience, and a person who 

manages a chemical business on a day-to-day basis. As someone responsible for meeting the payroll, she may have the most valuable 

experience of all. We look forward to all of your testimony today 

as we collectively work together in the days ahead to get the 

project done. 

Last year we spent lots of hours, countless hours, trying to develop bipartisan legislation only to find that we put more issues on 

the table than we could resolve. Drawing on that lesson, this year’s 

bill is a little bit more focused. 

First, it kicks the starting process of selecting chemicals already 

in commerce for risk evaluation and, if necessary, rulemaking to 

mitigate that risk. From among chemicals already on the market, 

EPA selects ones that it sees as potentially posing an unreasonable 

risk. Second, the bill also lets the market select chemicals for risk 

evaluation by allowing a manufacturer to ask for and pay for an 

evaluation. In either case, the risk evaluation must stand up to rigorous scientific standards set out in the legislation. If EPA does 

identify an unreasonable risk, it must turn immediately to drafting 

a rule tailored to mitigate that risk. These rules will focus on the 

danger at hand. Once written, those rules will be shared by all 

Americans. Rooted in science, the EPA decisions will obviate Stateby-State attempts to regulate interstate markets, and everyone 

from moms in Michigan to consumers around the world will have 

the confidence that a chemical cleared by EPA won’t harm them or 

their families. So let’s continue the bipartisan momentum and get 

this legislation through the committee and the full House. This is 

the year for meaningful reform. 

I again want to particularly thank Mr. Shimkus for his strong 

work to get a bill to the plate where we can finally get some runs 

scored. Yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Upton follows:] 

20 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON

Today is an important milestone as we work to bring our chemical safety laws 

into the 21st century. I thank Mr. Shimkus for his bipartisan member-to-member 

work bringing this legislation before the subcommittee. I also commend the Ranking 

Member of the full committee Frank Pallone for collaborating across the aisle to develop a proposal we can all embrace. 

We’ve heard from a diverse cross-section of stakeholders that TSCA needs modernizing. When first enacted nearly four decades ago, the structure was a bit of an 

experiment. When our predecessors on this committee designed TSCA, they were 

clearly attempting to reconcile diverse points of view within Congress and in the 

American public. 

Our challenge today is the same, but now we have the benefit of experience. Our 

witnesses include the administration’s main point person on chemical regulation, industry experts with global regulatory experience, and a person who manages a 

chemical business on a day-to-day basis. As someone responsible for meeting the 

payroll, she may have the most valuable experience of all. We look forward to all 

of your testimony today and to working collaboratively in the days to come in getting this project done. 

Last year we spent countless hours trying to develop bipartisan legislation only 

to find that we put more issues on the table than we could resolve. Drawing on that 

lesson, this year’s bill is more focused. 

First, it kick starts the process of selecting chemicals already in commerce for risk 

evaluation and, if necessary, rulemaking to mitigate that risk. From among chemicals already on the market, EPA selects ones it sees as potentially posing an unreasonable risk. Second, the bill also lets the market select chemicals for risk evaluation by allowing a manufacturer to ask for (and pay for) an evaluation. 

In either case, the risk evaluation must stand up to rigorous scientific standards 

set out in the legislation. If EPA does identify an unreasonable risk, it must turn 

immediately to drafting a rule tailored to mitigate that risk. These rules will focus 

on the danger at hand. 

Once written, those rules will be shared by all Americans. Rooted in science, the 

EPA decisions will obviate State-by-State attempts to regulate interstate markets. 

And everyone from moms in Michigan to consumers around the world will have the 

confidence that a chemical cleared by EPA won’t harm them or their families. 

Let’s continue the bipartisan momentum and get this legislation through the committee and the full House. This is the year for meaningful reform. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. The Chair 

now recognizes the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. 

Pallone, for 5 minutes. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, JR., A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am pleased to be here today to continue this subcommittee’s 

important work to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act. Chairman Shimkus’ new discussion draft, the TSCA Modernization Act 

of 2015, is a thoughtful and innovative approach that has the potential to move chemical regulation forward. The chairman and the 

majority staff have worked closely with Democratic members, including our ranking member, Mr. Tonko, to improve this draft, and 

I am happy to say that our work is ongoing. I look forward to hearing from EPA, affected industries, and environmental stakeholders 

this morning to plot a course forward and begin to strengthen this 

draft. 

Improving the Federal Government’s ability to identify and manage risks from the chemicals that are manufactured and processed 

in this country is critical. For 6 years now, there has been wideVerDate Mar 15 2010 09:35 Aug 31, 2015 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\114THCONGRESS\114X30XTSCA2015\114X30XTSCA2015XWORKING WAYNE
21 

spread agreement among industry, labor, and nongovernmental organizations that TSCA needs to be reformed. 

In 2009, the EPA Administrator said that TSCA had proven to 

be ‘‘an inadequate tool for providing the protection against chemical risks that the public rightfully expects.’’ The American Chemical—or I should say, the American Chemistry Council said it 

wanted to work with stakeholders, Congress, and the administration to make reform a reality. And a coalition of public interest 

groups said that by updating TSCA, Congress can create the foundation for a sound and comprehensive chemicals policy that protects public health and the environment while restoring the luster 

of safety to U.S. goods in the world market. 

At that time, stakeholders and policymakers pursued a vision of 

a fully reformed TSCA, ensuring that no chemical would go on the 

market without being found to be safe. All chemicals in commerce 

would be subject to minimum testing, and aggressive regulation 

would ensure to the American public a reasonable certainty of no 

harm from the chemicals they are unwittingly exposed to every 

day. Six years later, that vision is still my goal but the risks from 

toxic chemicals in our environment and the products we use every 

day are serious and pressing, and progress toward that vision has 

been elusive. 

This new discussion draft does not attempt to realize the goal of 

a fully reformed TSCA with assurances that all chemicals in commerce are safe but it will give EPA tools to reduce risk now, in a 

package that I think has the potential to become law, and it will 

give consumers the ability to choose chemicals and products that 

have been reviewed for safety against a purely risk-based standard. 

Under this draft, EPA would have the ability to require testing 

through orders, rather than just rulemaking. That is an important 

step forward, although it won’t fix all of the problems in Section 

4 of the existing law. The draft would also ensure that EPA’s determinations of unreasonable risk under section 6 of current law will 

be made without consideration of costs and with explicit protections 

for vulnerable populations. EPA would then be able to move forward with risk management without the paralyzing requirement to 

select the least burdensome option. These too are essential steps 

forward, although issues in section 6 still remain. 

Additionally, the draft would remove outdated limits on user fees 

to provide more resources for EPA’s activities under TSCA, although it could do more to ensure that EPA actually receives those 

funds. The draft also would direct EPA to update the TSCA inventory, providing better information to consumers and policymakers 

on the universe of chemicals in commerce in the United States, and 

the draft would require substantiation of CBI claims in the future, 

preventing abuse of CBI claims and ensuring greater transparency. 

These are all positive changes that would empower EPA to offer 

greater protections for human health and the environment. Importantly, the draft also avoids some of the significant concerns that 

have been raised about past proposals, such as limits on the ability 

of EPA to regulate articles and limits on the ability of States to be 

partners in enforcement. 

This bill reflects robust bipartisan outreach, which I hope to continue in the coming weeks. Mr. Chairman, you deserve credit for 

22 

a strong process so far, and a strong product. Some important 

issues remain to be worked out, such as setting yearly targets for 

EPA initiated risk evaluations, ensuring that private rights of action are protected, and targeting risks from the worst of the worst 

chemicals, PBTs. So I hope we can come together to strengthen this 

proposal and produce a law. 

I welcome the testimony from today’s witnesses, which will point 

the way for further work on a bipartisan basis. We have all, Mr. 

Shimkus, myself, Mr. Tonko and of course Mr. Upton, we really 

consider this a goal that can be accomplished on a bipartisan basis, 

and I just want to thank everyone for all their hard work, particularly over the last 2 weeks. You know, we had a recess for 2 weeks 

but the staff were certainly not in recess. They were working very 

hard on this bill. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pallone follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, JR. 

I am pleased to be here today to continue this subcommittee’s important work to 

reform the Toxic Substances Control Act. Chairman Shimkus’ new discussion draft, 

the TSCA Modernization Act of 2015, is a thoughtful and innovative approach that 

has the potential to move chemical regulation forward. The chairman and the majority staff have worked closely with Democratic members and staff to improve this 

draft, and I am happy to say that our work is ongoing. 

I look forward to hearing from EPA, affected industries, and environmental stakeholders this morning to plot a course forward and begin to strengthen this draft. 

Improving the Federal Government’s ability to identify and manage risks from the 

chemicals manufactured and processed in this country is critical. For 6 years now, 

there has been widespread agreement among industry, labor, and nongovernmental 

organizations that TSCA needs to be reformed. 

In 2009, the EPA Administrator said that TSCA had proven to be ‘‘an inadequate 

tool for providing the protection against chemical risks that the public rightfully expects.’’ 

The American Chemistry Council said it wanted to work with ‘‘stakeholders, Congress, and the administration to make reform a reality.’’ 

And a coalition of public interest groups said that ‘‘By updating TSCA, Congress 

can create the foundation for a sound and comprehensive chemicals policy that protects public health and the environment, while restoring the luster of safety to U.S. 

goods in the world market.’’ 

At that time, stakeholders and policymakers pursued a vision of a fully reformed 

TSCA, ensuring that no chemical would go on the market without being found to 

be safe. All chemicals in commerce would be subject to minimum testing, and aggressive regulation would ensure to the American public a reasonable certainty of 

no harm from the chemicals they are unwittingly exposed to every day. 

Six years later, that vision is still my goal. But the risks from toxic chemicals in 

our environment and the products we use every day are serious and pressing, and 

progress toward that vision has been elusive. 

This new discussion draft does not attempt to realize the goal of a fully reformed 

TSCA with assurances that all chemicals in commerce are safe. But it will give EPA 

tools to reduce risk now, in a package that I think has the potential to become law. 

And it will give consumers the ability to choose chemicals and products that have 

been reviewed for safety against a purely risk-based standard. 

Under this draft, EPA would have the ability to require testing through orders, 

rather than just rulemaking. That is an important step forward, although it won’t 

fix all of the problems in Section 4 of the existing law. 

The draft would also ensure that EPA’s determinations of unreasonable risk 

under Section 6 of current law will be made without consideration of costs and with 

explicit protections for vulnerable populations. EPA would then be able to move forward with risk management without the paralyzing requirement to select the least 

burdensome option. These too are essential steps forward, although issues in Section 

6 still remain. 

23 

Additionally, the draft would remove outdated limits on user fees to provide more 

resources for EPA’s activities under TSCA, although it could do more to ensure that 

EPA actually receives those funds. 

The draft also would direct EPA to update the TSCA inventory, providing better 

information to consumers and policy makers on the universe of chemicals in commerce in the United States. 

And the draft would require substantiation of CBI claims in the future, preventing abuse of CBI claims and ensuring greater transparency. 

These are all positive changes that would empower EPA to offer greater protections for human health and the environment. 

Importantly, the draft also avoids some of the significant concerns that have been 

raised about past proposals, such as limits on the ability of EPA to regulate articles 

and limits on the ability of States to be partners in enforcement. 

This bill reflects robust bipartisan outreach, which I hope to continue in the coming weeks. Mr. Chairman, you deserve credit for a strong process so far, and a 

strong product. 

Some important issues remain to be worked out, such as setting yearly targets 

for EPA initiated risk evaluations, ensuring that private rights of action are protected, and targeting risks from the worst of the worst chemicals, PBTs. 

I hope we can come together to strengthen this proposal and produce a law. I welcome the testimony from today’s witnesses, which will point the way for further 

work. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you. I also want to thank you for your personal involvement, and we were working. There was a conference 

call for about an hour, and I think you were on the road somewhere and I was on the road somewhere, and staff was here, and 

it was a good start, so people were working hard, and I appreciate 

it. 

Now I would like to recognize 5 minutes to start the questions, 

and Mr. Jones, how many chemicals already on the market is EPA 

currently assessing on a yearly basis? And I think check the microphone. 

Mr. JONES. I am sorry. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. That is all right. 

Mr. JONES. Thank you. We identified about 80 chemicals several 

years ago for assessment. We have assessed final assessments for 

five of them, and we have about 20 under evaluation right now, so 

it is hard, since we are so early in the early days of attempting to 

evaluate existing chemicals, it is hard to right now estimate exactly 

how many per year we are doing. Somewhere in the range between 

three and eight I would say would be an accurate number. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. To evaluate, let’s say, 20 chemicals per year, how 

much many and staff would you need? Do you have—— 

Mr. JONES. I would think we would need at least twice the existing chemical resources we have right now to do 20 a year. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Would the discussion draft, particularly the section—you kind of highlighted part of this in your testimony—requiring manufacturers to pay all costs related to the requested reviews all you, the EPA, to have more chemicals evaluated? 

Mr. JONES. Yes. One of the tricks that we have observed in the 

way the bill is drafted is that those resources actually don’t come 

to EPA, and so they go to the Treasury, and so we are limited by 

the appropriated resources that we have, so it doesn’t really expand 

our capacity. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Yes. Is there—and that is why we have the hearing and stuff because—I am being whispered in my ear that you 

are right, so we obviously—the intent is for—if there are user fees, 

24 

the whole intent is for you to be able to get access to it so you can 

have the ability. And so if there are ways that you get your smart 

people involved and we get our smart people involved, maybe there 

is—I don’t know what we can do but we need to make sure that 

that happens. I think that is the intent—what is that, Mr. Chairman? I know I am not the smart guy. 

Does the discussion draft improve the agency’s ability to require 

the submission of hazard and exposure data by authorizing the 

EPA to obtain it by rule, consent agreement, or by issuing an 

order? 

Mr. JONES. Yes, it does. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Does the discussion draft allow EPA to select and 

do risk evaluations on chemicals whose exposures and hazards 

have the potential to be high enough to create an unreasonable 

risk? 

Mr. JONES. Well, it is interesting because the language creates 

an additional step that we don’t have today and that we have to— 

that is why I refer to it as the potential catch-22. We actually have 

to make a finding before we can initiate a review, and that finding 

is somewhat related to risk, even though the whole point of a risk 

evaluation is to determine the risk. So it creates somewhat of a 

barrier actually to initiating a risk evaluation. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And obviously the intent of the legislation is to be, 

as was stated in some of the opening statements, a more slimmeddown, more efficient, more simplistic process of getting from A to 

B to C to judgment ruling, so we want to make sure we have that, 

and any help you can provide in addressing that, we would be— 

because look at schematics of current law, and you look at schematics of other possible laws, they are much more complex, and we 

would like to—our intent is not to be—our intent is just to get the 

job done. 

Mr. JONES. I think that could be achieved. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The discussion draft excludes cost considerations 

when EPA performs risk evaluations, saving that issue for when 

and if a risk-management rule is written. Do you agree that the 

risk evaluation should focus on hazard and exposure? 

Mr. JONES. Yes. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. You testified that the discussion draft is ambiguous on how EPA is to incorporate cost and other factors into a 

risk-management rule under section 6A. Can you explain why you 

said that? 

Mr. JONES. Thank you. That is probably one of the most important observations that we have around the discussion draft. So the 

existing standard of unreasonable risk has been interpreted by 

courts to be a risk-benefit balancing where the Agency has actually 

got to demonstrate that the health benefits of the rule literally outweigh the costs imposed by the rule. It is not clear whether or not 

that interpretation that exists right now would be changed at all. 

There are some parts of the draft that make it appear that actually 

cost shouldn’t come into consideration in determining the level of 

protection achieved, but that would conflict with the cost-benefit 

balancing that previous courts have determined, and then there is 

the cost-effectiveness language, and so our observation is, it is not 

clear if this discussion draft is maintaining the existing cost-benefit 

25 

balancing, if it is attempting to exclude costs completely from the 

risk management, or if it wants costs considered but in some general way without being explicit. So it is a clarity issue from our 

perspective. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, and my time is expired, but I think 

you have raised an issue that what is the—you have courts—decisions courts have rendered and then simplistically changing a law, 

so my guess is, the courts would then have to render judgment 

under new statutes versus old statutes. 

So having said that, I will recognize the ranking member, Mr. 

Tonko, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and again, much exchange 

here has cited the hard work done over the last couple of weeks, 

so allow me to further compliment and thank the staff for their devotion to this effort along with my colleagues. 

We need TSCA reform certainly because under current law, the 

American public is exposed to industrial chemicals without that 

sufficient bit of safeguard to protect public health. So tens of thousands of chemicals in commerce have never been tested for safety, 

and EPA does not currently have the necessary authority or resources to tackle this backlog. 

So Mr. Jones, what is EPA currently doing to address the highest-priority chemicals under TSCA? 

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Congressman Tonko. So we identified— 

we evaluated the 1,200 or so chemicals with known hazard, and we 

compared them against criteria that were related to severity of 

hazard as well as the potential for exposure, and from that priority-setting process, we have identified a little over 80 chemicals 

that we think are the most important to assess first, and we have 

now begun to assess those chemicals. 

Mr. TONKO. And then would this draft as it currently stands enable that work plan? 

Mr. JONES. It sets a little bit of a higher bar than the priority 

process that we did in making a judgment that there is actually 

the potential for the exposure to exceed the hazard, which we did 

not do in our priority—— 

Mr. TONKO. Any clarification that we need to have in the language that we are proposing? 

Mr. JONES. I think we don’t want to create a potential unmanageable bar, I think if that might be useful. 

Mr. TONKO. OK. The last thing we should do in TSCA legislation 

is make it harder for EPA to act against the worst chemicals. What 

changes could we make to ensure that the chemicals EPA thinks 

are the highest priority get reviewed and addressed? 

Mr. JONES. Well, as I mentioned, having a requirement that we 

make a finding that the exposure may exceed the risk before we 

have actually done the risk assessment is I think an unnecessary 

requirement up front. And then as I mentioned earlier, I think it 

is important that we all have a clear understanding of what the actual risk-management standard is, and I don’t think it is clear 

right now what that standard is, which opens the potential for 

there to be a lot of litigation after decisions are made. 

Mr. TONKO. And adding a minimum number for EPA is a beneficial thing when it comes to initiating reviews? 

26 

Mr. JONES. If the Congress wants a certain pace to be achieved, 

and my experience is that being clear about what your expectations 

are about how quickly the Agency acts is pretty important. 

Mr. TONKO. Let me focus on the role of cost considerations that 

the Chair was quizzing you about, and using those costs in the effort to assess and manage risks. 

This bill includes, as he indicated, explicit language to indicate 

EPA’s risk evaluation cannot take cost into consideration. The language is intended to ensure that EPA’s determination of whether 

or not a chemical presents an unreasonable risk does not include 

cost considerations but cost analyses are never part of that risk. 

They are, however, or should be included in an analysis of the options available to reduce identified risks for risk management. So 

are there—and again, I heard the give and take, the bantering that 

you and the Chair had, but are there suggested changes that you 

can share that would make that effort more clear? 

Mr. JONES. Yes, and this goes back to the risk-management 

standard Congress is trying to put into place, and the administration believes the costs are an important consideration in risk management, which is different from saying that the risk-management 

standard should be a risk-benefit balancing, as I have testified before. In the chemicals arena, that is a very challenging thing to do 

because the risks that we are looking at are often not quantifiable 

but the costs almost always are, and what we got out of the Corrosion Proof case was a finding that the Agency had to numerically 

determine that those benefits literally numerically were larger 

than the costs, which creates—you end up with a cost-biased standard, which has been one of the problems that we have had. So 

being clear about whether the Congress is looking for a cost-benefit 

balancing or you want a standard that requires the consideration 

of costs, which may not sound like it is a lot different but actually 

in reality it is quite different, would be very useful. 

Mr. TONKO. Well, I think any kind of, you know, suggested 

changes would be very helpful for the subcommittee as we move 

forward, and I appreciate your input here today. I yield back. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. The Chair 

now recognizes the vice chair, Mr. Harper, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HARPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Jones, thank you for 

being here today and shedding some light on a very important subject for us, and we look forward to working together on both sides 

of the aisle and with you on coming up with a solution that works, 

and I appreciate your input on the discussion draft today. 

You testified that priority chemicals should be assessed and 

acted upon in a timely manner if the chemical poses a risk. For 

your work plan chemicals, have you determined that some show an 

unreasonable risk? 

Mr. JONES. So we have demonstrated with the five assessments 

we have completed that three of them demonstrate risk. Two of 

them we said were not significant risks. But unreasonable risk 

under current TSCA has been interpreted by courts to mean that 

the health benefits outweigh the costs, and so what we are doing 

right now for the three chemicals where we have demonstrated significant risks were evaluating the health benefits that we have 

identified and comparing them to the cost of potential regulation 

27 

and ultimately we need to come up with a risk management that 

balances the health benefits with the costs. So that is the part of 

the process that we are in right now. 

Mr. HARPER. So the three of the five that you are moving forward 

on, you haven’t completed that process, correct? 

Mr. JONES. That is correct. We are in that process. 

Mr. HARPER. So what is the status of the risk-management rules 

on those particular three chemicals? 

Mr. JONES. So we are right now—we have articulated the health 

benefits, the risk, and we are right now evaluating the cost of potential regulation, which also involves looking at evaluating the 

risks and the benefits of the alternatives and determining whether 

or not we have figured out the least burdensome way to adequately 

protect against the risk. 

Mr. HARPER. You know, when you have those five that you were 

looking at, ruling two of those, did you start the process on all five 

at the same time? 

Mr. JONES. Yes, we did. 

Mr. HARPER. And are they supposed to proceed at the same pace, 

or I assume each one can be at a different level, but are you proceeding—are the three that you are looking at, are they at the 

same spot in the process? 

Mr. JONES. They are actually, although that is a little bit by happenstance because sometimes you run into a difficult issue and it 

may take a little longer to resolve, but the three that we are looking at, whether or not there is unreasonable risk, they are moving 

at pretty much the same pace. 

Mr. HARPER. Now, you said there are 80 that have been identified. 

Mr. JONES. That is correct. 

Mr. HARPER. And how many—who determines which ones are 

looked at next and assessed? 

Mr. JONES. That would be me. 

Mr. HARPER. OK. 

Mr. JONES. We actually had a public process where we identified 

factors that we wanted to look at. They were factors like carcinogenicity, reproductive toxicity, persistence bioaccumulation, and we 

also wanted to make sure there was exposure so that we weren’t 

looking at potentially hazardous chemicals for which nobody was 

being exposed. We had public participation around that at some 

workshops, and then we finalized the criteria, and then we evaluated about 1,200 chemicals against the criteria that we developed, 

and these are the ones that came out on top. 

Mr. HARPER. So how many assessments do you believe will be 

completed this calendar year? 

Mr. JONES. That is a tricky one because we are taking on some— 

there are at least three that will be above the five that we have 

done that is very clear will be completed. We are also looking at 

some of the most challenging compounds, which are flame 

retardants, and we are looking at several dozen of those, and they 

are quite complicated, so it is hard for me at this point to predict 

how many of the flame-retardant assessments we will complete. 

Mr. HARPER. Yield back the balance of my time. 

28 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. The Chair 

now recognizes the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. 

Pallone, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The testimony we hear today will be essential as we work to 

move this draft forward, and I know we have heard already today 

and we will continue to hear from the second panel that there are 

a number of changes needed to the draft, and I appreciate my colleague, Mr. Tonko, for highlighting some of those changes. I would 

like to focus briefly on some of the things I think this draft gets 

right, and if you can to just answer yes or no, but I am not going 

to restrict you completely. I just want to get through it. 

First, I would like to highlight some of the problems in current 

law that I think this draft addresses. So Mr. Jones, does this draft 

remove the least-burdensome language that has been an obstacle 

to EPA action under section 6? 

Mr. JONES. Yes. 

Mr. PALLONE. Does the draft remove the statutory cap on user 

fees in existing law? 

Mr. JONES. Yes. 

Mr. PALLONE. Is it your view that the draft needs to do more to 

ensure that EPA actually receives adequate resources to carry out 

this program? 

Mr. JONES. Yes, and I would just say it is because the draft as 

written right now does not allow the fees to come to EPA. 

Mr. PALLONE. OK. Would you have any recommendation in that 

regard? 

Mr. JONES. We could work with the committee to figure out how 

to write that. We have done this before. 

Mr. PALLONE. OK. Well, I just hope that we can make changes 

to ensure that EPA has the resources as we move forward. Otherwise, you know, what goes is it? 

Turning back to the draft, does this draft require justification of 

future CBI claims, unlike current law? 

Mr. JONES. Yes. 

Mr. PALLONE. And does this draft provide explicit protections to 

vulnerable populations and therefore improve current law? 

Mr. JONES. It is a little ambiguous. It precludes EPA from determining a chemical meets the safety standard unless we have evaluated vulnerable populations but doesn’t speak to scenarios where 

we find that the safety standard is not met. 

Mr. PALLONE. OK. I think these are all very important points, 

and I recognize that the draft is not as comprehensive as some past 

proposals, but I think it would move the ball forward on chemical 

regulation and improve current law. 

I also wanted to recognize again the subcommittee chairman, Mr. 

Shimkus, because he has tried to avoid some of the major issues 

that have stalled proposals in the Senate. So let me ask you about 

some of that. 

Mr. Jones, I know that you raised concerns about article provisions in the Senate bill. Are those concerns addressed here? 

Mr. JONES. Yes, they are. 

Mr. PALLONE. OK. And you also raised some concerns about the 

ability of States to co-enforce requirements of EPA TSCA rules and 

29 

to regulate chemicals while EPA is evaluating them. Are those concerns addressed here? 

Mr. JONES. Yes. 

Mr. PALLONE. OK. I think this draft is a good starting point. Obviously we still have a lot of work to do, but we have had a very 

good process so far, and I look forward to continuing to work with 

the chairman and Mr. Tonko. And so at this point, I can’t believe 

I am actually yielding back, but I accomplished everything I wanted to accomplish. 

Mr. JONES. It was my short answers. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time, and I hope 

those answers are helpful to you and I hope they are not harmful 

to me. 

So with that, I would like to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman 

from Ohio, Mr. Latta, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LATTA. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and 

thanks very much for holding this very important hearing today, 

and Administrator, thanks for being with us today. 

Last year when you testified before the subcommittee, in April, 

in fact, just about a year ago, I discussed with you the TSCA inventory. You stated how the actual number of chemicals on the TSCA 

inventory somewhere between 7,000 and 84,000, the 7,000 number 

being the rough number of chemicals produced in large quantities 

and overall the 84,000 representing those chemicals that have been 

on the inventory and how it could be potentially misleading. Let 

me ask, do you believe that the discussion draft before us would 

give a more accurate picture of the chemicals actually in commerce 

on any given date? 

Mr. JONES. It would, yes. 

Mr. LATTA. OK. And also, how effective do you believe the leastburdensome provision has been under the current law? 

Mr. JONES. I think it has created a barrier under the current 

law. 

Mr. LATTA. OK. Could you explain that, how it has created a barrier? 

Mr. JONES. So for example, right now there are three chemicals 

that we have identified as posing significant risk, and before we 

can move forward regulating them, we have to evaluate about eight 

different risk-management scenarios that are identified in the statute and show how for each one of them we are selecting the one 

that poses the least burden on society at large, so we have to analyze each of these potential risk-management options and then just 

pick the least burdensome one, which as a general matter I don’t 

have a problem with but it is not always necessary to evaluate everything to know which one is going to be the least burdensome ultimately and we are required to do that under the statute. 

Mr. LATTA. Let me ask, how much time does that add to the 

process? 

Mr. JONES. Well, you know, we are doing it right now for the 

first time in 30 years, and so I will have a clearer answer when 

we have actually finished that analysis, and whether or not a court 

ultimately upholds did we do enough analysis for each of the riskmanagement options that are in the statute. 

30 

Mr. LATTA. Let me ask about under the proposed draft bill before 

us is on the deadlines, and you know, the deadlines we are looking 

at that the administration will conduct and publish risk evaluation 

under the subsection for chemical substance not later than 3 years 

after the date on the Administrator makes a finding, 180 days after 

the date on which the manufacturer requests the risk evaluation, 

and it also goes on to state that if the Administrator determines 

that additional information is necessary to make a risk evaluation, 

a determination under the subsection, there is—it can be extended 

a date of 90 days after receipt of additional information or 2 years 

after the original deadline, and with that, you know, where do you 

see that—do you see that would be a good time frame? 

Mr. JONES. You know, I think deadlines are really important for 

the Government to have, but they are pretty short, and the only 

one that I think that the Agency has some potential for meeting 

is the initial assessment if EPA initiates the review, 3 years—our 

experience so far is that between 2 and 3 years, so having the 

deadline be the latter end of it seems appropriate. 

Us turning an assessment around in 6 months from an industry 

submission I think is unrealistically optimistic. I would love to be 

able to do proposed rules within 6 months of a safety evaluation. 

My experience is that that is also just unrealistic from past experience. 

Mr. LATTA. Well, you know, with the 3 years, you know, how long 

on general—you are saying 2 to 3 but how many different chemicals are out there that have taken more than 3 years for you to 

do an evaluation on? 

Mr. JONES. So it is possible that something that is hugely challenging from an exposure potential or hugely challenging from understanding the hazard that it would take longer than 3 years, I 

would expect that as a general matter, 3 years is a deadline that 

could be achieved for the vast majority of the chemicals we would 

evaluate. 

Mr. LATTA. Well, thank you very much, and—— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Will the gentleman yield the last 44 seconds? 

Mr. LATTA. I yield back. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Under the industry applied evaluation, you will 

have more data in that process than when you just pick a chemical 

out of the air and say we have to do this one as our requirement 

under current law. Is that correct? 

Mr. JONES. It is not clear that that would be the case. I assume 

that that was some of the assumptions that were built into that 6- 

month deadline. It is not obvious the way it is drafted that we 

would have more. The other—— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Well, if the industry is willing to have you expedite 

this, my guess is that there would be, you know, a working relationship that—but we will work to clear that up. My assumption 

would be, they are going to give you what they have to try to get 

an expedited—I mean, that is the whole benefit of going through 

this process is coming to a decision. 

Mr. JONES. Yes. The draft is written that all they have to do is 

request it, so they don’t have to actually give us anything. 

31 

Mr. SHIMKUS. OK. Thank you. I thank my colleague. The Chair 

now recognizes the gentleman from Oregon, Mr. Schrader, for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. SCHRADER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. 

How does the Agency currently and then under your interpretation of the new discussion draft balance individual risk and responsibility versus, you know, absolute risk, if you will, posed by certain 

chemicals? 

Mr. JONES. That is a good question, Congressman. Right now we 

are looking at a compound that is used as a paint stripper, and it 

has actually resulted in deaths across the country over the last 15 

years, and so arguably—and it results in deaths because people 

sometimes use it in an enclosed space, and so if you—it is theoretically possible that we could mitigate that risk by a labeling restriction, although when you look there actually is a labeling restriction 

right now although the fine print is quite fine, and so you try to 

struggle with the effectiveness of giving people information to protect themselves versus what may be the reality is to whether or not 

people avail themselves of that, and so it is something that we 

right now are struggling with, with a chemical that we have made 

a priority compound because, you know, individuals do have some 

responsibility with respect to protecting themselves, but at the 

same time, if past is prologue and giving information may not be 

effective, we think we have the ability to protect people from themselves. 

Mr. SCHRADER. I think one of the struggles this committee is 

going to have and the Congress writ large is balancing that personal responsibility. If people are allergic to certain things and 

most people are not allergic to, does that make that a toxic substance generally speaking. So I think we are going to have a lot 

of work to do to find out what that appropriate balance is. This is 

still the United States of America and people do bear personal responsibility for their own health and well-being, and labeling, albeit small or large, hopefully adequately, demonstrating what potential harm it may cause to certain subpopulation is important 

but the real world is anything in excess is probably toxic, in popular terms, carcinogenic. Everything is carcinogenic these days. I 

think we have to be thoughtful and I would hop the EPA would 

balance their rulemaking with whatever legislation we have going 

forward. 

I am interested in the cost-effectiveness discussion. You are interested in apparently more leeway than is now granted under this 

legislation. I would probably be against that. My concern is that 

costs should be taken into account. We have a Superfund site in 

my State where EPA’s interpretation has gotten to where if one individual sort of maybe could have ingested a certain amount of fish 

on a daily basis, way in excess of what any person would do, even 

tribal members, that at a level that is way below the current toxicity standards, that that would pose a significant risk and needs 

to be mitigated by extremely expensive alternatives, and the judgment I have seen so far from EPA is that they want to have a very 

expensive alternative to what could be a simpler solution to I think 

a very exaggerated risk. So I would hope that you would take this 

into account. I hope that the legislation does not reduce the cost. 

32 

In fact, to me it seems pretty clear. You know, when you are determining the risk, OK, cost should not perhaps be part of the discussion, but certainly, certainly, absolutely, 100 percent cost-effectiveness should be part of, a major part of, the solution, and I would 

fight against any language that said cost should be just a consideration. That, to your point, is a loophole you could drive a truck 

through at the end of the day. So I hope you would be at least open 

to the current legislation as currently written. 

Mr. JONES. We think it is very important for cost to be considered in the risk management. It is about how it should be considered, and as I was saying, right now it is not clear if it needs to 

be considered in a literal balancing of cost and benefits, and that 

we have stated numerous times how challenging that is for chemicals where it is always possible to estimate cost. It is often not possible to give a numeric monetization to the benefit. 

Mr. SCHRADER. Well, if you can’t monetize it that what can’t be 

measured should probably be done. I mean, at the end of the day, 

there has to be—everyone is susceptible. There are going to be 

some persons, some individuals, some child, some remote genetic 

configuration of any given individual that is going to be at risk 

with any given chemical or food substance, whether it is deemed 

safe or not, and I think it is extremely important not to get 

wrapped around the axle on having completely irrelevant, with all 

due respect, solutions that are not actually benefit to the population writ large. 

As a veterinarian, it is all about epidemiology. You are not going 

to save everybody at the end of the day, and we have to understand 

that, and I think America in this 21st century has to become sophisticated enough to understand where is the maximum risk exposure. 

With that, I would like to yield the balance of my time to the 

chairman of the committee—or ranking member. Excuse me. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Yes, you don’t want to give it to me—no, you might 

want to give it to me. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you. I thank the gentleman for yielding. 

I would like to turn briefly to a concern I have that the draft is 

too specific about how the Agency should conduct science. Agency 

decisions must be transparent including those about science, but in 

my opinion, these are decisions best left to technical experts. This 

draft includes requirements that EPA act based on a specific definition of the weight of the scientific evidence and requires EPA to 

consider a lengthy list of factors including sponsor organizations, 

uncertainty and more. 

So Mr. Jones, when these scientific requirements are included in 

the statute, does that open EPA’s use of science up to litigation? 

Mr. JONES. So any requirement that you have to do, you then either—if you don’t do it, you are open to litigation. I think that the 

science requirement that most troubles us is the consideration of 

a threshold effect, which is something that we do right now, but 

it is certainly possible that in 10, 15, or 20 years, it is not even 

part of the scientific, you know, lexicon. And so boxing us into 

things that may become obsolete in the future scientifically are the 

kinds of things we would like to generally avoid. 

33 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, and I share those concerns, and I yield 

back. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. The Chair 

now recognizes the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Johnson, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Administrator Jones, about a year ago, you testified before this 

committee on TSCA reform. You may remember at that meeting, 

I expressed my concern to you that TSCA reporting requirements 

seemed to incentivize manufacturers, for example, in the electronics industry, to landfill byproducts instead of recycling them, 

even when those byproducts are rich in recyclable metals and other 

valuable materials—copper, for example. In other words, we are 

making it more cost-effective for manufacturers to put that stuff in 

the dirt than to recycle it, save money, create jobs, and be more environmentally conscious. 

You may also remember that last October I sent Administrator 

McCarthy a letter asking the EPA to complete its analysis of data 

collected during the 2012 chemical data reporting, or the CDR 

cycle, with the idea that such an analysis would help EPA reassess 

the need for CDR information in future reporting cycles. In December I received a response from Administrator McCarthy that the 

analysis would be completed by early 2015. It is now April, and no 

analysis has been finalized, and while the EPA has had talks with 

my staff, and I know that there has been some exchange of information with industry, it has not provided the electronics industry 

nor the public with any new information for some time now. So because it appears that this analysis is ongoing, I remain hopeful 

that the EPA still has the opportunity to safely incentivize the recycling of byproducts and render any other options to solve this 

problem unnecessary. 

But the first step must be the release of the analysis of 2012 

CDR byproducts. Can you tell me when that data will be released? 

Mr. JONES. Thanks, Congressman, and thank you for raising this 

issue to our attention. We have spent a fair amount of time evaluating the issue that you brought to our attention. We have begun 

to communicate with your staff as well as the electronics industry 

the results of our analysis. I would be reluctant to give a date on 

the release of the analysis before checking with my staff, but we 

are very close to being able to give an answer to the question that 

you raised. 

Mr. SCHRADER. OK. Administrator McCarthy said early 2015. Is 

that still a projection? Are looking at the first half of this year 

or—— 

Mr. JONES. It is the first half of this year. 

Mr. SCHRADER. OK. All right. Well, I look forward to getting 

that. I appreciate that. 

What is the EPA’s cost for doing the analysis that they do? Is 

it pretty consistent, or does the cost vary from chemical to chemical? 

Mr. JONES. It is going to vary pretty significantly from chemical 

to chemical. 

Mr. SCHRADER. OK. Can you give us an example? 

34 

Mr. JONES. Yes. So the first five chemicals that we looked at, we 

project that the regulation for those that we think bear consideration of regulation will cost about a million and a half dollars, and 

the analysis will have been a million dollars. That applies to three 

of them, and so the chemicals that demonstrated some risk are significantly more expensive to do than the two chemicals which did 

not demonstrate any risk. So when you find no risk, it is relatively 

cheap. There we estimated about a million dollars, so actually 

much of the cost is associated with the regulatory requirements of 

the analysis necessary to support a regulation. 

Mr. SCHRADER. You just said something that maybe I misunderstood you. Why would you be considering regulating a chemical 

that provides no risk anyway? 

Mr. JONES. I am sorry. I must have stated it backwards. 

The chemicals that demonstrated risk are the ones that we are 

doing regulatory analysis for to support a potential regulation. 

Mr. SCHRADER. OK. All right. 

The discussion draft gives the EPA to select a chemical substance for risk evaluation under TSCA section 6. Would the EPA 

rely on information that is currently available to the Agency to 

make those selections? 

Mr. JONES. That is now we would intend to—— 

Mr. SCHRADER. That is how you put those in the risk category? 

Mr. JONES. Yes. 

Mr. SCHRADER. OK. I think I have only got 34 seconds left, and 

I can’t get this last one in. Mr. Chairman, I will yield back some 

of my time. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. The Chair 

now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Green, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GREEN. I am sitting in as the ranking member. Mr. Tonko 

had to go, although Paul from New York doesn’t really want me 

from Texas doing it. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. You better take down that placard because you 

might hurt him. 

Mr. GREEN. Yes, I don’t want to get him in trouble. 

Thank you for being here. I particularly want to thank Chairman 

Shimkus and Ranking Member Tonko and our ranking member 

and Chair of the full committee for working on this issue. It has 

been frustrated because it has been a law since 1976, and I know 

for the last two terms this subcommittee has tried to see how we 

could deal with it, but it sounds like, you know, we will go small 

and see what we can do and do just problem-solving, which I think 

is a great way to go. 

If enacted, would the TSCA Modernization Act improve EPA’s 

ability to make a risk determination and a risk-management plan 

for existing chemicals? 

Mr. JONES. That is an interesting question. For the way it is 

structured right now, because the only things—because the way 

the fees don’t come to the Agency for industry-submitted requests, 

it would absolutely make it clearer what we had to do and how 

many. We have to do whatever they submitted to us. But because 

we are not getting the fees, I think it would crowd out our ability 

to initiate any on our own. Now, if there is a solution that allows 

35 

the fees to come to EPA, then I think it would clearly allow us to 

have more pace to existing chemicals program. 

Mr. GREEN. OK. Would the discussion draft retain the current 

TSCA timing of preemption of State and local action? 

Mr. JONES. Basically, yes, it would retain the—it would eliminate 

the—it would basically be similar to what is currently required in 

TSCA, marginally different. 

Mr. GREEN. Under the discussion draft, would risk determination 

be based solely on health and safety factors without consideration 

of cost? 

Mr. JONES. The risk evaluation would, yes. 

Mr. GREEN. Currently, the EPA is allowed to disclose confidential 

business information to State and local government officials. Is 

that part of this package? 

Mr. JONES. Currently it is quite difficult to do that but under 

this provision, the provision in the discussion draft, it would make 

it quite straightforward to do that. 

Mr. GREEN. OK. Will the discussion draft allow EPA to disclose 

the confidential business information to the—well, strike that. 

Under current TSCA, is EPA allowed to disclose CBI to a treating 

doctor or a healthcare professional? 

Mr. JONES. It is quite—that is what I was saying. It is quite burdensome for us to do that right now, which is something that—— 

Mr. GREEN. Would this discussion draft help with that? 

Mr. JONES. Yes. 

Mr. GREEN. Would the discussion draft authorize the EPA to disclose—well, I take that back again. Under current law, is there any 

limit to the length of time for confidential business information 

claim? 

Mr. JONES. No. 

Mr. GREEN. Under the discussion draft, would there be any time 

limits? 

Mr. JONES. Yes, 10 years. 

Mr. GREEN. OK. The discussion draft creates a new term, ‘‘potentially exposed subpopulations.’’ Under the definition provided in the 

discussion draft, would the thousands of chemical plants that I 

have and the people that work there and the people that live 

around it in our district be covered under the definition of potentially exposed subpopulations? 

Mr. JONES. It is certainly possible that they would be, yes. 

Mr. GREEN. Now, obviously you want those jobs there but we 

also want to make sure that the products they are producing that 

our country needs are safe as possible. In your testimony, you note 

the discussion draft lacks a sustained source of funding for the 

chemical safety management, which goes back to the funding. 

Would you recommend to our subcommittee the best way to address that concern? 

Mr. JONES. I think it is a relatively straightforward fix that has 

the funding that is designated here going to the EPA, which right 

now it would not go to the EPA. 

Mr. GREEN. And I think that is something we will consider. Are 

there current statutes that provide a sustained source of funding 

that could be used as a model for TSCA reform? 

36 

Mr. JONES. Yes, both the drug law—PDUFA is the acronym—or 

the pesticide law, the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act, both 

have funding mechanisms. 

Mr. GREEN. You state in your testimony that EPA strongly feels 

that any update to TSCA must provide the agency with the ability 

to make timely decisions and the ability to take action to address 

that risk. Do you believe that the discussion draft provides the 

agency with the needed authority to make those timely decisions? 

Mr. JONES. The timeliness is clear. As I said earlier, I think that 

the ambition is quite impressive and perhaps not manageable. I 

think the part that I am struggling is looking for more clarity as 

to exactly what the risk-management standard is so we are not 

fighting in litigation forever about what it actually means. 

Mr. GREEN. And I agree. I would hope when we finish it, we give 

the clarity that you need so there is no question at all. In fact, EPA 

is downstairs in the Energy and Power Subcommittee so you all 

are regular guests here in our committee. 

Mr. JONES. We carpooled over. 

Mr. GREEN. But any suggestions I know we would all appreciate 

that. And do you believe the discussion draft gives the EPA to authority to address the identified risk? If not, what changes would 

we need to ensure the Agency has that authority? 

Mr. JONES. Again, that goes back to clarity of what the risk-management standard is is important. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know I am over time. 

I appreciate it. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. The Chair 

will now look to my colleague from Indiana, Mr. Bucshon. Do you 

waive? 

Mr. BUCSHON. I waive. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Colorado, Ms. DeGette. It is good to have her back. She was very active last Congress, and we are glad to see her here with us. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate you having this hearing, but even more so, I appreciate 

the amount you have worked with Mr. Green, myself, Mr. Tonko 

and others on really trying to make progress on this path to TSCA 

reform. It is not easy as we all had been saying. If it was easy, it 

wouldn’t have taken us 30 years to fix it. 

And thank you, Assistant Administrator Jones, for coming over 

to give us some thoughts this morning. I want to start by looking 

at EPA’s ability to require testing of chemicals under the draft. 

This discussion draft includes an important change to EPA’s authority under section 4 of TSCA by empowering the EPA to require 

testing through order rather than rulemaking. 

So if you can talk to us about how order authority will improve 

your ability to require testing under section 4, that would be great. 

Mr. JONES. Sure. Right now we are required to do a rule if we 

want to compel the generation of health and safety data for a 

chemical, and we are also required to make a finding that we have 

some reason to believe there may be an unreasonable adverse effect 

for such chemicals, so you get into this kind of a catch-22. You 

want the data because you don’t know but you need to know something before you compel it, and then you have to do a rule, and 

37 

rulemaking is a very long process and so it can take many, many 

years. So an order authority would allow us to move much more 

quickly to require generation of health and safety data. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Do you have any sense about on an average how 

much more quickly that would be? 

Mr. JONES. Well, in our pesticides program, we have order authority and have had it for 40 years, and when we find that there 

is data that we need to require, we are able to issue orders in matters of months as opposed to 4 or 5 years. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. Now, that change was one that I had sought 

in section 4 but this draft doesn’t seem to address the catch-22 that 

EPA has long faced, and you talk a little about it. It seems that 

under this draft, the EPA would still have to find that a chemical 

might present an unreasonable risk before they were required—before they could require testing, and that is what you were just talking about. 

Mr. JONES. So the way we have read the discussion draft, Congresswoman, is that to issue an order, we don’t need to make that 

finding, so that seems to be addressed. It is in the context of to initiate a risk evaluation, we need to have some reason to believe the 

exposure exceeds the hazard. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And so how do you think the language, or do you 

think the language can be adjusted in this discussion draft to reflect that issue? 

Mr. JONES. I think it would be relatively straightforward to do 

that instead of having some reason to believe exposure exceeds 

hazard, have some reason to believe there is exposure, have some 

reason to believe there is hazard. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. So it is the ‘‘exceeds hazard’’ that is the issue? 

Mr. JONES. Yes, I think so. 

Ms. DEGETTE. If you could work with us to supplement your response to give us some technical assistance on that, that would be 

really helpful. We would appreciate it. 

In addition to granting the EPA order authority to require testing, the discussion draft also includes a provision to allow manufacturers to request that EPA evaluate their chemicals for safety. The 

discussion draft requires the EPA to make a finding on any evaluations requested by companies within 6 months. Is that going to be 

enough time to perform a robust evaluation of a chemical? 

Mr. JONES. I don’t think so, no. 

Ms. DEGETTE. How long does the evaluation of a chemical usually take? 

Mr. JONES. It usually takes a couple of years, and this was the 

conversation the chairman and I were having that the discussion 

draft doesn’t require the manufacturers to submit all the data necessary to do an evaluation. If it did, it would still require a couple 

of years. And so they could just say I want you to evaluate my 

chemical. The other thing is that when there is a controversy 

around the chemical, it is often the case that EPA’s interpretation 

of the data doesn’t agree with the manufacturer’s. 

Ms. DEGETTE. So do you think there is some language we could 

put together to tighten that up a little bit? 

Mr. JONES. It would seem like it is more about how much time 

the Agency should have to do—— 

38 

Ms. DEGETTE. So maybe, Mr. Chairman, that is something we 

can talk about as we go forward. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Would the gentlelady yield? 

Ms. DEGETTE. I would be happy to. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. I still think there is this debate about what is industry going to provide, and that was the whole part. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Right. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. If they are providing a lot of data, then the 

timelines may be legit, so we will visit that. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. Good. All right. 

The last thing is that the discussion draft proposes amending 

section 9 of TSCA to allow the EPA to set fees to help defray the 

costs of additional chemical testing but it doesn’t flag funds to be 

used specifically for that purpose. So my question is, does the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention have sufficient 

funds appropriated to undertake additional testing of new chemicals under TSCA? 

Mr. JONES. Not as written in the discussion draft. 

Ms. DEGETTE. So if we had some kind of a dedicated fund rather 

than just solely relying on appropriations, would that be of assistance? 

Mr. JONES. Yes, it would. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentlelady’s time is expired. The Chair now 

turns to Mr. Cramer from North Dakota for 5 minutes. Do you 

waive? 

Mr. CRAMER. I would yield to Mr. Hudson. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman has yielded to Mr. Hudson, who is 

recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HUDSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you for being here today. I appreciate your testimony. It 

has been very informative. 

My first question: TSCA as amended by the discussion draft requires that the agency have a need for testing and exposure information before it imposes a requirement on manufacturers and processors to develop that information. Is that a good requirement? 

Mr. JONES. I believe so, yes. 

Mr. HUDSON. All right. Last year you asked that each chemical 

evaluation have a deadline for completion. Are the deadlines in our 

bill about right for that? 

Mr. JONES. I rarely say this: They are a little too short. 

Mr. HUDSON. Really? Well, what do you think they ought to be? 

Mr. JONES. Well, I think that we can complete assessments within 3 years. I don’t think we can even with industry-submitted data 

complete an industry-submitted assessment in 6 months. As much 

as I would love to do a rulemaking in 6 months, I think we probably need upwards of 2 years to do a rulemaking. 

Mr. HUDSON. EPA has authorized some 90 chemicals as TSCA 

work plan chemicals. Does the discussion draft require a change to 

that program? 

Mr. JONES. It requires us to make a finding that is above and 

beyond what we did in the identification of the priority chemicals. 

Mr. HUDSON. Well, would work plan chemicals likely be selected 

for risk evaluations under the House discussion draft? 

39 

Mr. JONES. They would likely be but, again, we would have to 

do one additional step that we have not done heretofore, make a 

determination that we think it is likely or possible that the exposure exceeds the hazard, which we have not done. 

Mr. HUDSON. Gotcha. I have got a question as far as fees, collection of fees currently. How does the Agency currently collect user 

fees under TSCA? 

Mr. JONES. We only have a few right now for the submission of 

a new chemical under the premanufacturer notification program. 

Those fees don’t come to EPA either, so except for some small businesses, manufacturers when they submit a new chemical to EPA 

for review submits a fee with that. 

Mr. HUDSON. And those go back to the Treasury? 

Mr. JONES. They go back to the Treasury. 

Mr. HUDSON. What is your budget breakdown by category for individual sections of TSCA? 

Mr. JONES. I would need to get back to you on that but we could 

provide that pretty quickly. 

Mr. HUDSON. I would appreciate it if you would do that. What 

is the EPA budget in both funding and FTEs for chemical review 

under section 5 and under section 6 of TSCA? 

Mr. JONES. Again, that would be part of what we would get back 

to you on, overall budget breakdown between existing chemicals 

and new chemicals. 

Mr. HUDSON. OK. Well, I would appreciate that information, and 

I thank you. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. HUDSON. I yield back to the chairman. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Just a follow-up. So on new chemicals, you have 

90 days, and then with the possibility of an additional 90 days? 

Mr. JONES. Um-hum. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And so we are saying on existing chemicals, it will 

take 3 years? That is just part of the date we are having. 

Mr. JONES. Yes. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. You will have to explain to me why—not now but 

you will have to explain to me why that is, and with that, I yield 

back the time and now, she has been very patient, my colleague 

from California, Ms. Capps, for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. CAPPS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, first of all, for holding 

the hearing, and our witness for your testimony. 

Under current law, TSCA has used an ‘‘unreasonable risk’’ standard to evaluate the safety of a chemical. This is understood to be 

a cost-benefit standard, which in effect requires the Agency to balance the economic value of a chemical against the adverse health 

effects such as cancer, autism. Besides posing serious ethical problems, this approach has also proven to be unworkable. 

Mr. Jones, what is the impact of this cost-benefit standard in the 

context of TSCA? 

Mr. JONES. Well, as I have mentioned, it is often very difficult 

for certain health outcomes to the way in which we do risk assessment to monetize them. Some we are able to. There are some carcinogens which we are able to monetize. There are some pollutants 

like particulate matter where we are able to monetize. In the case 

of a chemical that we are looking at right now where death is the 

40 

outcome, we can monetize that. There are some outcomes the way 

our risk assessment is designed, we are not able to monetize them, 

and so our ability to say that these benefits literally outweigh these 

costs is challenging. It is not impossible but it creates a challenge 

for us. 

Mrs. CAPPS. So since 2009, there has been widespread agreement 

that this cost-benefit standard does need to be abandoned. This 

subcommittee has repeatedly received testimony that TSCA’s current safety standard is failing to protect the general public and 

particularly vulnerable populations. EPA, the American Chemistry 

Council, even oil refineries have all stated that cost should not be 

part of safety determinations under TSCA. I welcome the changes 

in the discussion draft to explicitly exclude costs from risk evaluations but I am not sure they go far enough. 

So my question, Mr. Jones, is: do you think changes are needed 

in this draft to ensure the safety of chemicals as evaluated against 

a purely health standard? 

Mr. JONES. Well, what I said so far today is that right now it is 

just ambiguous as to what the standard is, and that I think is critically important so we don’t spend, if this were to become law, the 

next 30 years litigating what the standard is. The administration 

has said that the safety evaluation should be risk-based. but the 

administration has also said that cost should be a consideration in 

the risk management. 

Mrs. CAPPS. Right. I hope you will work with this committee because we intend to, I hope, move forward to ensure the language 

gives effect to that kind of intent. 

Another important component of the safety standard in any 

TSCA proposal is protection for vulnerable populations. Vulnerable 

populations include infants and children, the elderly and disabled, 

workers, and those living near chemical facilities. In their 2009 report, Science and Decisions, the National Academy of Science recommended that vulnerable populations should receive special attention at all stages of the risk assessment process. 

Mr. Jones, do you agree that it is important to address risks to 

vulnerable populations when managing chemical risks under 

TSCA? 

Mr. JONES. Yes. 

Mrs. CAPPS. I am pleased to see this draft includes an explicit 

protection for vulnerable populations blocking EPA from finding 

that a chemical does not present an unreasonable risk if the agency 

finds that the chemical presents an unreasonable risk for a vulnerable subpopulation. In other words, if a chemical fails to meet the 

standard for a subpopulation, it doesn’t meet the standard, period. 

Mr. Jones, do you think that requirement is going to provide the 

protection that we need for vulnerable populations? 

Mr. JONES. It is interesting, Congresswoman Capps. When we 

make the determination that a chemical doesn’t pose an unreasonable risk, we have to make the finding you described, and this just 

goes back to the earlier comments for when what the actual safety 

standard is when we find that there is risk is not clear, and for 

that reason it is not clear how vulnerable populations would be included in that, so when we find there is a risk. 

Mrs. CAPPS. So we need more clarity? 

41 

Mr. JONES. There needs more clarity there. 

Mrs. CAPPS. Yes. And I appreciate the efforts made in this draft 

to ensure, and I can see now it is important to emphasize the word 

‘‘draft.’’ It probably does need to be changed along the way. Costs 

are left out of safety evaluations and that vulnerable populations 

are protected. This is sort of we are this far on it but I hope we 

can continue to work to improve this draft. I applaud the efforts 

that we have made so far but we have a ways to go to make sure 

that we move chemical regulation forward, and I yield back. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentlelady yields back her time. 

Seeing no other members asking for questions, we do want to 

thank you for, it is obviously not long in congressional time but a 

legislative hearing, and we want to thank the members for being 

very diligent and involved and engaging in your responses. We look 

forward to working with you, and with that, we will dismiss you 

and ask for the second panel to come forward. 

Mr. JONES. Thank you. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. We would like to start. We want to thank the second panel for coming and appreciate you sitting through the first 

round. Hopefully a lot of questions will be generated based upon 

the comments. The way I would like to do it is, I will just introduce 

one at a time when their time comes for the opening statements, 

and again, welcome. A lot of them are familiar faces that we have 

seen here numerous times, so friends of the committee, I would 

say. 

First, we would like to welcome Mr. Mike Walls, who is the Vice 

President of Regulatory and Technical Affairs with the American 

Chemistry Council. Your full statement is in the record. You have 

5 minutes, and you are recognized. 

STATEMENTS OF MICHAEL P. WALLS, VICE PRESIDENT, REGULATORY AND TECHNICAL AFFAIRS, AMERICAN CHEMISTRY 

COUNCIL; DR. BETH D. BOSLEY, PRESIDENT, BORON SPECIALTIES, LLC, ON BEHALF OF THE SOCIETY OF CHEMICAL 

MANUFACTURERS AND AFFILIATES; JENNIFER THOMAS, 

SENIOR DIRECTOR, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, ALLIANCE OF AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURERS; AND ANDY 

IGREJAS, DIRECTOR, SAFER CHEMICALS, HEALTHY FAMILIES 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL P. WALLS 

Mr. WALLS. Good morning, Mr. Shimkus, Mr. Tonko, and members of the—— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And just if you could pull that a little bit closer. 

Mr. WALLS. How is that? I don’t want to break anybody’s eardrums. 

Thank you again for the invitation to be here today. I am very 

happy to testify today in support of the bipartisan discussion draft. 

ACC strongly supports efforts to reform TSCA. Over the years, 

problems with implementation of the current statute have eroded 

public confidence in the Federal regulatory system, contributed to 

misperceptions about the safety of chemicals, and created uncertainty throughout interstate commerce. 

42 

The discussion draft is a significant milestone in the TSCA reform debate. For the first time, there is now bipartisan reform 

measures before each House of Congress, and while the debate over 

TSCA reform certainly doesn’t end with this hearing, there is now 

a very real opportunity to achieve TSCA reform this year, and we 

at ACC are very encouraged by the very positive comments that 

members of this subcommittee have made both on the process and 

the substance of the draft. 

Now, in 2009, ACC published a set of 10 fundamental principles 

for TSCA reform. The discussion draft, like S. 697, which is pending in the Senate, fully addresses all our principles. The draft addresses key issues and shortcomings in TSCA, and among the most 

important elements are that the draft requires that EPA evaluate 

risks only on the basis of health and environmental considerations. 

That was a key problem that has hampered implementation of the 

current Act to date. 

Under the draft, cost and benefit considerations are relevant only 

in deciding what regulatory option EPA will impose to control 

risks. We believe the draft strengthens EPA’s authority to mandate 

the generation of new information on chemicals. The draft also protects sensitive commercial information from disclosure while requiring appropriate upfront substantiation of those claims. 

The draft also balances the interests of the State and Federal 

Governments by promoting a robust, uniform national chemical 

regulatory system. 

As the subcommittee continues its discussion, some elements of 

the draft do require some additional clarifications. We think there 

is a need for additional detail and direction to EPA on the manufacturer risk initiated—sorry—the manufacturer-initiated risk evaluation process. I think you heard comments to that effect from Mr. 

Jones. We think it is particularly important that Congress provide 

clear direction and clearly articulate its expectations for that process, and at a minimum, EPA should be required to promulgate 

rules or appropriate guidance so that all stakeholders understand 

how that process can produce risk evaluations that are timely, of 

high quality and are reliable. 

We also think it is necessary to clarify the interplay between section 6A and 6B and the presence or absence of an appropriate riskmanagement rule. This was one of the elements Mr. Jones mentioned at the conclusion of his testimony. 

ACC also believes that EPA must have access to appropriate resources to implement a reformed TSCA. Under the draft, TSCA fee 

revenue is deposed to the general Treasury. We believe those funds 

need to be returned to EPA. 

The draft also allows State governments to adopt regulations 

identical to those promulgated by EPA in certain cases. It would 

be helpful if the degree to which States may depart from the Federal approach in enforcing those regulations, if at all, should be 

clarified. 

Again, the bipartisan discussion draft is a significant step toward 

achieving TSCA reform this year. We look forward to working with 

all members of this subcommittee to ensure that TSCA reform 

builds confidence in the U.S. chemical regulatory system, protects 

health and the enforcement from significant risks, and meets the 

43 

commercial and competitive interests of the U.S. chemical industry 

and the national economy. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify. I am happy to respond to questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Walls follows:] 

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Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you. 

Next I would like to turn to Dr. Beth Bosley, President of Boron 

Specialties, on behalf of the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and 

Affiliates. She has testified before. Welcome back, and you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF BETH D. BOSLEY 

Ms. BOSLEY. Thanks very much. Good morning, Chairman 

Shimkus and Ranking Member Tonko, and everyone on the subcommittee, and thanks also for having me back to Washington to 

discuss TSCA, one of my favorite subjects. It has been really refreshing to hear so many positive statements being put forth by 

both the Democrats and Republicans on this issue, and we really 

applaud all the efforts to modernize TSCA. It covers such a wide 

variety of chemicals and applications, and it really impacts a huge 

swath of our economy, so it is really important, and given the 

range of interested parties, it is remarkable how much alignment 

has been achieved. It is a very complicated statute, and you have 

worked pretty hard not to make it more complicated, so I applaud 

that as well. 

I would just like to highlight a few things that I think are important in the discussion draft. The safety standard, as we have already heard today, corrects the fundamental flaw in the current 

TSCA that requires you to take cost into account. In this case, protection of human health and the environment is really the only 

driver for the safety standard, and that is a great improvement. 

EPA will make very different decisions under section 6 now than 

it has before, and it will allow policy and emerging science to inform protective determinations regarding these chemicals. 

For new chemicals, I have talked quite a bit I think here before 

that I think the new chemicals process works very well, and I 

would like it to remain basically as it is. It is one of the more important parts of the statute. It drives protection of our environment 

and our economy. Experience has taught us that new chemicals can 

be greener, and of course, we must continue to innovate because we 

live in a global economy now. If we want to promote innovation and 

develop greener chemistries, section 5 really must remain efficient, 

predictable, and affordable. 

We are also interested in timely access to the market, and the 

90-day review window has proven sufficient in most cases. In some 

cases, EPA has to suspend or give itself another 90 days, but in 

fact EPA often completes its review after day 22, which is really 

very early. It depends on how much information they are given, but 

after day 22 is often. We would certainly like to be able to go to 

market after day 22 as well. 

One area that TSCA hasn’t worked, and we have heard about 

this a number of times already this morning, is with existing 

chemicals, but I think the discussion draft goes a long way to really 

solve the problems with existing chemicals. It can ask for data 

under section 4 really whenever it thinks it is necessary to conduct 

the risk evaluation. It doesn’t have to make a finding, and that is 

a really great improvement. 

We do support a more comprehensive review of existing chemicals, and since there is no detailed screening process outlined in 

49 

the bill, we are assuming EPA would go forward with its work plan 

chemicals as it has to date. 

We do also support deadlines for this review. I am not sure how 

long it takes, but I would say EPA probably has a good estimate 

of how long existing chemicals take to review. We know that deadlines work well in new chemicals, so they should work well in existing chemicals, but the deadlines and the workload really have to 

be achievable. 

Under section 8 for the reporting requirements, one of the most 

important factors we see there is an inventory reset. As we have 

heard already today, again, there are over 80,000 chemicals on the 

inventory, but only 7,700 were reported on in the most recent CDR. 

That is a big disparity between what is in commerce and what is 

not in commerce. 

Currently, as a manufacturer, I report on exposures of chemicals 

to my employees, but then I also have to estimate exposures to my 

customers’ employees, and that is pretty hard for me to do, especially as a small business. So I would think process of reporting 

would be very important to add to this—requiring process of reporting would be very important language to add. 

Confidential business information is really important for all U.S. 

manufacturers, but especially small businesses like mine. CBI allows us to pursue research and market development without advertising to the world exactly what we are doing. Even so, we really 

appreciate that we must proceed with as much transparency as 

possible, and I think that resubstantiation after 10 years is an excellent addition to the current draft. 

Resources and fees: As we have all heard, EPA needs more resources, and getting those fees to EPA instead of the Treasury is 

really important. I also appreciate, as you might imagine, that you 

have given the provision for small-business reduced fees, and I 

wholeheartedly support that. 

So in general, just very much supportive of the bill. We think it 

fixes a lot of the problems with the current TSCA statute, and I 

am sure other issues will be raised, but we look forward to working 

through them with you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Bosley follows:] 

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Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you very much. 

Now I would like to recognize Ms. Jennifer Thomas, Director of 

Federal Government Affairs with the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, again, another returnee. Welcome, and you have 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF JENNIFER THOMAS 

Ms. THOMAS. Thank you, Chairman Shimkus, Ranking Member 

Tonko. My name is Jennifer Thomas, and I am here on behalf of 

the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which is a trade association of 12 automakers, and together they account for approximately 

75 to 80 percent of all new vehicle sales here in the United States. 

The last time I was before this committee, I was beamed in from 

Europe, so I am very happy to be here in this person this time, so 

thank you for giving me the opportunity to share our views on the 

draft TSCA Modernization Act of 2015. 

We commend Chairman Shimkus, Chairman Upton, and Ranking Member Pallone for their bipartisan efforts to reform TSCA for 

the first time since it was enacted in 1976. 

Automakers work diligently to identify and reduce substances of 

concern in automobiles. We have eliminated the use of mercury 

switches and lead wheel weights. We continue to phase out the use 

of the flame retardant deca, and we are eliminating copper from 

brake pads. 

Autos are also one of the most recycled consumer products. Nearly 90 percent of a vehicle’s material content is recycled or reused. 

But clearly there is more work to do to protect the public and environment from harmful chemical substances, and we want to be 

part of the solution. We welcome this discussion draft and believe 

it will enhance EPA’s ability to more effectively regulate potentially 

harmful chemicals while providing industry a clear and consistent 

regulatory environment. 

Let me take a moment to highlight some specific areas of interest 

to our industry. First, we support the manner in which this draft 

seeks to regulate chemicals and articles. This approach is consistent with existing EPA policy, which has traditionally recognized 

the complexity of regulating chemicals and articles by exempting 

them from most TSCA requirements. We understand the potential 

need to regulate articles in certain circumstances but this should 

be based on risk of exposure to the chemical in question. For example, there is a clear difference between the risk of exposure to a 

chemical substance in a baby bottle versus an engine component 

underneath the hood of a car. 

Secondly, we believe that vehicles should be serviced with parts 

as produced, meaning those service parts used the material that 

were acceptable when the vehicle was designed, certified and 

warrantied. Replacement part demand is very small. It is generally 

1 to 5 percent of all vehicle parts, and it declines over time as a 

vehicle fleet is retired. Btu since the average age of a vehicle on 

the road today is 11 years, replacement parts must be available for 

many years so that those vehicles can be serviced and maintained. 

There is often some confusion of how vehicle replacement parts 

are produced, so let me briefly explain this model. Automakers 

typically put a marginal supply of those parts in stock while the 

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vehicle is still in production, and to the extent that customers need 

replacement parts beyond that initial stock, there is a productionon-demand market, and suppliers continue to produce them using 

the same materials, the same production process, and the same engineering specifications as for the original vehicle. So while replacement parts might theoretically be able to be redesigned for vehicles 

no longer in production, there are technical and logistical barriers 

that often make such redesign infeasible if not impossible. 

I would also note that similar laws regulating chemical substances have examined this issue and have opted to exempt replacement parts. 

Finally, we appreciate this draft’s simplified approach to State 

preemption, which ensures that any EPA final determination will 

preempt State chemical regulations. However, we do recommend 

that the committee also consider suspending any new State action 

while EPA decides a chemical substance is a candidate for a risk 

evaluation. We are aware of the concern expressed about the passage of time while EPA considers regulatory action and are supportive of expedited time frames for EPA action. 

Thank you again for inviting me to be here and discuss this important issue with you today. Congress is on the cusp of reforming 

TSCA for the first time in nearly 40 years, and we strongly believe 

that the final bipartisan product will more effectively regulate 

harmful chemicals in a way that protects the health and safety of 

all Americans while providing industry the certainty and the clarity that it needs. We look forward to working with you as this draft 

moves through the legislative process. 

I thank you again, and I would be happy to answer any of your 

questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Thomas follows:] 

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Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you very much. 

The Chair now recognizes Mr. Andy Igrejas, Director of Safer 

Chemicals, Healthy Families. Welcome back. You are recognized 

for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF ANDY IGREJAS 

Mr. IGREJAS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Mr. 

Tonko. I am pleased to be here as like the other witnesses are. 

Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families is a coalition of 450 organizations and businesses. It ranges from the Learning Disabilities Association, the Steelworkers Union, large health providers like Dignity 

Health, and the major national environmental organizations. 

We all came together to reform TSCA in 2009, and we definitely 

want to have it happen sooner than later, and we are glad to work 

with the committee toward that end. 

I want to highlight what we see as positive in the draft, what 

is missing, and some ideas for how to move forward. I want to also 

say up front that we think the more targeted approach you have 

taken does hold a lot of promise. There is a lot that it potentially 

solves and points the way forward, and also to identify some of the 

elements that are in there that we support. 

The absence of a complicated prioritization scheme we think is 

wise. It avoids the downside of the low-priority loophole that a lot 

of us are concerned about. You also heard from EPA that they already have prioritization criteria they have gone through that had 

public input, et cetera. 

The approach to preemption by preserving more of TSCA’s existing preemption, you avoid the controversy of the void or the suspension whereby States are blocked just because EPA is looking at 

something, and we appreciate that. The draft also doesn’t roll back 

EPA’s authority on products or imports, so we think you have 

threaded the needle on the issue of products and don’t take away 

authority on some of these other areas. It doesn’t make it easy to 

require toxicity testing. It does remove the least-burdensome requirement, which was an issue in the asbestos decision, and vulnerable populations are addressed though there is some clarification potentially needed around the rulemakings. 

I want to focus on the issue of cost and see if I can add some 

value. It was talked about a lot. We basically agreed with where 

EPA came down on this, that we don’t see that issue as solved in 

this draft, and to try to put it simply, I think in our vision, you 

want the risk evaluations to clearly identify the risk including the 

vulnerable populations and you want the rulemaking to have to 

protect against that risk very clearly. And then the cost considerations including cost-effectiveness comes into play with how EPA 

does that, which can mean longer time frames for implementing 

some particularly costly piece of the risk management. It can include choosing a more cost-effective way of addressing the risk over 

another way. But you don’t want it to be a limitation on whether 

the risk is addressed at all, and that is the key distinction that we 

still see as potentially not solved. So it literally comes down to, will 

you have a risk hanging out there that EPA has identified and at 

the end we will be able to tell the story that the public is now protected from that risk and have that be true, or we potentially have 

67 

the story that EPA winds up saying we actually didn’t protect 

against the risk because a court found that we couldn’t prove that 

the cancer cases and the hospital visits, the lost work, et cetera, 

outweighed the costs to the companies to move to the safer alternative. That is the difference that this hinges on, and so I am not 

sure if we have a difference of intent or of interpretation of the language, but that is the key thing we would like to see solved is that 

the risk management has to protect against the risk. 

We also would agree with what has been said about the imbalance between industry assessments and the assessments that EPA 

would undertake under its own power under the draft. Really, the 

industry assessments are the only thing driving EPA activity under 

this draft. They have to agree to these requests and they have to 

undertake them, and on the flip side, they have to go through some 

hoops before they can undertake an assessment, and that creates 

an imbalance that we think could lead to them looking more at the 

chemicals that are already being managed well or that are already 

safe that have a lot of data instead of the ones that are causing 

problems out in the real world right now. And so we think if you 

got rid of those extra barriers put in place—this issue came up of 

20 chemicals a year, a requirement perhaps to do that. That is a 

nice round number. Maybe giving them a deadline to complete 

work on the chemicals that have been talked about, the 90 work 

plan chemicals, then we are on the way to driving some EPA action 

on the chemicals in addition to having this industry-initiated assessments. 

We agree with what has been said about fees. I have mentioned 

some other issues in more detail in the written testimony around 

the science provisions in the bill. We think that you could take— 

if you are going with less is more, you can go all the way and not 

direct EPA to take a position on some of these scientific questions, 

but if you are going to do that, there are places in the bill where 

what you are calling for is stuff that the National Academy of 

Sciences has actually said EPA shouldn’t do and there are some 

things the National Academies have said EPA should do that aren’t 

in there, and so I would say pull back or go further with what the 

National Academies would like to do. 

Persistent bioaccumulative toxins—these are the chemicals that 

are like PCBs. One of the only success stories of the original TSCA, 

there is a limited number of them, chemicals that are like that, 

identifying them early and requiring action. 

So I will stop there but I will just say that we think all the 

issues that we have identified are things that could be solved in 

the draft. We wouldn’t support the draft in its current form. But 

with the changes that we have talked about, it could be getting in 

shape where you would have a genuine public health achievement 

here. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Igrejas follows:] 

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Mr. SHIMKUS. I thank you for your opening statement, and I will 

turn to myself for the start of the first round of questions and recognize myself for 5 minutes. 

Mr. Walls, under section 6 of the House discussion draft, EPA 

must determine that a substance presents or will present in the absence of risk-management measures and unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment. Do you believe the discussion 

draft establishes a workable process for evaluating risk and identifying necessary risk-management measures? 

Mr. WALLS. Yes. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Do you believe the discussion draft provides clear 

direction to EPA to consider only health and environment considerations in evaluating the risk of chemical substances? 

Mr. WALLS. Yes. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And then Dr. Bosley, do you agree with the bill’s 

provision that breaks out risk evaluation, analysis of hazard and 

exposure as a separate question from the details of how to restrict 

a chemical by rulemaking? 

Ms. BOSLEY. Yes, I do. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. You have previously testified that Congress should 

include deadlines in TSCA. The updated discussion draft contains 

enforceable deadlines. Does the way that the discussion draft handles this matter satisfy you? 

Ms. BOSLEY. It does. I would like to see clearer deadlines that 

can be achieved by EPA. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Are you concerned that deadlines might force EPA 

into making decisions to meet a deadline? 

Ms. BOSLEY. I am sorry. What was—— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Do you think—well, the deadline issue, which is 

obviously a debatable question, would force them to make a quicker 

decision because of the deadline versus the science I guess is a better way to put it. Do you think the deadlines will force them to 

make bad—— 

Ms. BOSLEY. A bad call? 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Yes. 

Ms. BOSLEY. I don’t think so. The scientists and engineers at the 

EPA are very talented, and I think given what we have seen with 

new chemicals, they are able to make decisions in a very timely 

manner, and I think with the correct resources for existing chemicals—I think it all hinges on that as to how quickly they can address, so with correct resources, they should be able to—— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. What about the debate from the business perspective and the issue of litigation on missing a deadline or the like? 

Ms. BOSLEY. Yes. So I guess if it were up to me to write the bill, 

I would give EPA the ability to say, ‘‘Look, this happened, and so 

we need this much more time, we need another 3 months.’’ So I 

would give them that ability. We wouldn’t want that to go on for 

years and years, but I would give them the ability to say, ‘‘Well, 

there is this unforeseen circumstance, and we need a little more 

time.’’ 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The discussion draft permits a manufacturer to request EPA to conduct a risk evaluation of a chemical substance. Do 

you agree that this process can help EPA accelerate their review 

of existing chemicals in commerce? 

74 

Ms. BOSLEY. I should think it would, yes. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. In your business, do you conduct a basic risk evaluation of your chemical products and could that information inform 

EPA’s review of a substance? 

Ms. BOSLEY. We do. We don’t do a reaction in the lab without 

performing a risk evaluation beforehand. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. So it kind of addresses some of the questions we 

had to Mr. Jones on definitive timelines, and I guess to you and 

then I will go to Mr. Walls, talk about what would industry do if 

they are going to pay a fee to have a chemical reviewed? Would you 

think that there would be then a partnership that the sectors 

would be trying to work together or do you think they would just 

do that without providing information? 

Ms. BOSLEY. Oh, no, I would think that they would work together. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Because that would help you expedite the system. 

You could check your—— 

Ms. BOSLEY. In my case, for a small business, I would suspect 

we would have less to add than maybe a larger business, because 

I don’t have any toxicologists on staff, for instance. So I would rely 

on EPA toxicologists. So it may differ between the actual business 

and the actual circumstance how much information would be given, 

but we would always try to participate very heavily with EPA. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And Mr. Walls? 

Mr. WALLS. Mr. Shimkus, I think what has been the hallmark 

of section 5 right now, the new chemical review provision, has been 

that it has promoted a dialog between the industry and EPA. I 

would see the same sort of circumstance applying here in the manufacturer-initiated process. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And that again back to you, Mr. Walls and Dr. 

Bosley, and in this process under new chemicals, are you confident 

that confidential business information as you are going through 

this process with the EPA is currently being protected? Obviously 

that is a concern that we try to address a little bit. 

Mr. WALLS. EPA has very rigorous controls to protect confidential information, yes. 

Ms. BOSLEY. I am confident all of our information is protected. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Great. I think that is all I have, so with that—and 

Mr. Igrejas, we look forward to continuing to work with you because obviously we are moving forward. There is some bipartisan 

interest, and we want to continue to be open, so let’s keep working 

together. 

With that, I yield back my time and turn to the ranking member, 

Mr. Tonko. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you again to all 

the members of the panel. Your testimony is obviously very helpful, 

and we appreciate your participation. 

I would like to follow up on the earlier questions I had of the 

first panel member, and under the draft, manufacturers would 

have unlimited ability to require EPA to conduct risk evaluations, 

and there is no required number of EPA-initiated risk evaluations. 

Mr. Igrejas, do you find that to be a concern? 

Mr. IGREJAS. We do. I would share the concern that Mr. Jones 

raised, that they really don’t have the ability to—the discretion to 

75 

turn down the request and then they have to complete it under an 

expedited time frame. I imagine that those risk evaluations would 

be valuable to a number of companies. There are a number of companies who have developed data and they would bring that forward. And even if that is all on the up and up, in other words, even 

if EPA agrees and we would agree looking at the data, if that 

winds up being most of what they do, you are really not dealing 

with the chemicals that are causing a problem for public health 

and the environment right now. So even if you take the process at 

the most positive view of it—but I think there is another element 

too which is as far as I can tell, the burden of proof would still be 

on EPA, so they have to undertake this evaluation but then the 

burden of proof is still on them if they find an unreasonable risk 

to prove with substantial evidence, et cetera, et cetera. So it is not 

that—they are not—they would be doing it a little bit under the 

gun in that sense. It is not like the drug burden of proof that we 

have. 

Mr. TONKO. And Mr. Jones spoke about the need for clarification 

to ensure that determinations as a risk must be acted on would not 

include cost considerations. Do you agree that EPA’s determinations of whether a chemical substance needs risk management 

should be made without cost considerations? 

Mr. IGREJAS. We would agree with what he said, that they 

should identify the risk cleanly, health only, is this causing an unreasonable amount of risk, cancer, learning disabilities, birth defects, et cetera, and then the rule should be required to adequately 

protect against the risk, and then the cost considerations should be 

sort of behind that line, how you do that, how quickly can we phase 

in alternatives, how quickly can we impose these restrictions. That 

is where the role of cost should come in. And the draft, we would 

agree with him that it is a judgment call and we are concerned 

that a court could find that the old balancing still applies. As we 

know from the asbestos decision, that was where you had risks 

that were so severe, you had an unusual level of quantifiableness 

to the health cost of asbestosis and mesothelioma, and the court 

still find that EPA couldn’t prove that those quantifiable costs outweighed the benefits that asbestos brought to the economy. So it 

is a very—it is a big issue that has to be gotten right. 

Mr. TONKO. So I am hearing a little clarification needed in the 

language of the draft. 

What about our other panelists in that regard to the cost language? 

Ms. BOSLEY. Oh, yes, I think that clarification there to give EPA 

guidance would be very helpful. We wouldn’t want it to end up in 

the courts as well. 

Mr. WALLS. Mr. Tonko, I think the discussion draft reflects a desire to ensure that EPA continues to have the discretion, a considerable amount of discretion in managing the process, et cetera. I 

don’t think that the language in and of itself mandates that EPA 

adopt a process that raises the very same problems we have under 

current law. I think the intent is clear to do something different 

if it takes an additional clarification to get there. I hesitate—— 

Mr. TONKO. If left as is, does it invite additional litigation? 

76 

Mr. WALLS. It might, but I think the clear intention here is that, 

you know, EPA ought to be taking a very reasonable approach in 

looking at what are the costs and efficiencies related to the regulatory options under discussion. 

Mr. TONKO. But I think we can agree that we all want to avoid 

any threat of additional litigation. 

Ms. Thomas? 

Ms. THOMAS. I would agree with Mr. Walls, and just add that, 

you know, as an end user of chemicals, we strongly believe that 

cost should be a factor in the risk-management process. 

Mr. TONKO. And if we could turn to the use of science, Mr. 

Igrejas, do you have concerns about the requirements to use the 

weight of the scientific evidence as defined in this draft? 

Mr. IGREJAS. Yes, we do. Even though that phrase sounds innocuous, the National Academy of Sciences weighed in a report that 

Congress requested saying that the phrase was ambiguous and 

were concerned that it could cause some needless delays and potentially litigation hooks over what kind of information was included 

and referred to be EPA in an assessment. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you. With that, I yield back, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman’s time is expired. The Chair now 

recognizes the vice chair of the subcommittee, Mr. Harper, for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. HARPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to each of 

you for being here. 

Ms. Thomas, if I may ask you a few questions, what is the typical lead time from, say, the design to the time that a new car is 

going to show up on the showroom floor? 

Ms. THOMAS. Thank you for your question, and, you know, it varies amongst automakers but generally lead time is 5 to 7 years for 

a new production model. It is obviously longer for advanced technologies like electric vehicles. But that goes back to the articles debate and why, if EPA were to take action on a chemical substance 

in an article there should be, you know, lead time should be considered in that process. 

Mr. HARPER. So when EPA is looking at what they are going to 

do in a situation, that is something you believe they should take 

into account is that significant lead time on what they are going 

to try to do? 

Ms. THOMAS. Absolutely, because we need that time to obviously 

make the necessary changes and suitable alternatives should also 

be available. 

Mr. HARPER. What are some practical examples from your members that help illustrate why you are seeking these changes to 

TSCA? 

Ms. THOMAS. So, you know, our top priority is one single national 

program for chemical management, and that it be implemented at 

the Federal level. You know, a patchwork of inconsistent, conflicting State requirements just imposes a huge burden on complex 

durable-goods manufacturers like automakers. We manufacture vehicles to meet customer needs and to be sold in all 50 States, and 

inconsistent requirements, like, for example, there is—California 

and Washington State have brake friction standards to eliminate 

heavy metals and asbestos, and as much as they have tried to harVerDate Mar 15 2010 09:35 Aug 31, 2015 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00080 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\114THCONGRESS\114X30XTSCA2015\114X30XTSCA2015XWORKING WAYNE
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monize those regulations, there is still inconsistencies that we require a lot of resources and significant time obviously. 

Mr. HARPER. So you can’t have 50 different cars—the same car 

designed 50 different ways to sell in each State? 

Ms. THOMAS. No, that would be quite challenging. 

Mr. HARPER. Although sometimes you feel like that is what you 

might have to do. 

Please explain the technical, economic and logistical barriers that 

often make such redesigned replacement parts infeasible if not perhaps impossible to achieve. 

Ms. THOMAS. Sure. So like I indicated, there is a lot of confusion 

around this area. You know, we are not talking about all automobile parts, and we certainly don’t believe that they should be exempt from TSCA requirements. We are talking about a small universe of parts, 1 to 5 percent of vehicle production parts, and it is 

critical that those parts are needed to servicing and maintaining 

the existing fleet and, you know, the average age of a car is 11 

years old. We are making vehicles that last longer these days and 

so we have to be able to repair them and service them and so that 

is why that exemption is necessary. 

Mr. HARPER. Thank you very much. 

Ms. Bosley, you have long been an advocate for maintaining section 5 and ensuring strong CBI protections. Does this updated discussion draft appropriately handle those sections to your satisfaction? 

Ms. BOSLEY. It does. We are very happy with maintaining the 

CBI with substantiation, and we are also happy to resubstantiate 

or not after a certain amount of years. Section 5 works very well. 

The deadlines are adequate, and EPA can always extend if they 

need it, so we are very happy with section 5. 

Mr. HARPER. Do you believe that generic names and unique 

chemical qualifiers or identifiers will provide the public concrete 

enough information about your chemical without giving away your 

intellectual property? 

Ms. BOSLEY. I think so. I think that manufacturers work with 

EPA to provide robust generic chemical names that might identify 

the portion of the molecule that is causing the concern or the hazard, and that is where we need to get to. 

Mr. HARPER. Thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. The Chair 

recognizes the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Pallone, 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As I discussed with the first panel, I see some areas for improvement but I also think there are a lot of strong points in the chairman’s discussion draft, so let me start with Mr. Igrejas. 

I am particularly interested in your analysis that leaving the unreasonable-risk language in place along with the heightened standard of judicial review could perpetuate the problems EPA has faced 

in regulating dangerous chemicals. So do you think an important 

measure of any TSCA reform proposal is whether it empowers EPA 

to regulate known dangerous chemicals like asbestos, for example? 

Mr. IGREJAS. Certainly. I think that is the main lesson from the 

asbestos decision. 

78 

Mr. PALLONE. OK. Do you think it is important that any TSCA 

reform proposal provide for expedited action to manage the risks 

from chemicals that are persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic? 

Mr. IGREJAS. Absolutely. 

Mr. PALLONE. And why is this expedited action important for 

those chemicals? 

Mr. IGREJAS. The lesson from TSCA’s action on polychlorinated 

biphenyls, which is something TSCA originally did, is that those 

qualities taken together mean the chemical is around for a longer 

time and the risk winds up compounding because it builds up in 

the food chain. So the levels go up for the end user, for people, over 

time and so you need to identify them earlier and take more aggressive action to restrict them earlier even to see the public health 

improvements 20 years later, and that is the story of PCBs. 

Mr. PALLONE. Well, going back to PCBs, do you think that naming those chemicals in the statute helped move risk management 

forward, and would you support something similar for PBT chemicals? 

Mr. IGREJAS. Well, we certainly would. We have supported that 

in the past. That is the simplest way of having them in the draft. 

You could also put in criteria for PBTs and require EPA to do the 

identification but naming this is fastest. 

Mr. PALLONE. And I hope that we can work with the chairman 

as we move forward to include authorities for, you know, the way 

you suggested. I believe the draft shows the chairman’s intent to 

ensure that the problems identified in Corrosion Proof Fittings are 

addressed, and that is an intent I share. 

I just wanted to, if I could, in the time I have left, if I could just 

call attention to some of the strengths in this draft, which reflect 

points of strong agreement between stakeholders, and I just wanted to go down the line, you know, and as much as possible just answer yes or no, and I ask each of you to answer each of these questions. 

Do you support removing the least-burdensome language that 

has been an obstacle to EPA action under section 6? Mr. Walls? 

Mr. WALLS. Yes. 

Mr. BOSLEY. Yes. 

Ms. THOMAS. Yes. 

Mr. IGREJAS. Yes. 

Mr. PALLONE. Is the reporter able to get that? All right. 

Do you support giving EPA authority to require testing through 

orders, not just rulemaking? Mr. Walls? 

Mr. WALLS. Yes. 

Mr. BOSLEY. Yes. 

Ms. THOMAS. Yes. 

Mr. IGREJAS. Yes. 

Mr. PALLONE. OK. I don’t want to go too fast. Do you all support 

upfront substantiation of future CBI claims? 

Mr. WALLS. Yes. 

Mr. BOSLEY. Yes. 

Ms. THOMAS. Yes. 

Mr. IGREJAS. Yes. 

Mr. PALLONE. OK. Do you all support explicit protections for vulnerable populations? 

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Mr. WALLS. Yes. I think the discussion draft appropriately acknowledges the need to address potentially exposed populations. 

Mr. PALLONE. Dr. Bosley? 

Mr. BOSLEY. I do as well. 

Ms. THOMAS. Yes, we do. 

Mr. IGREJAS. Yes. 

Mr. PALLONE. OK. Do you all see these changes in the draft as 

valuable? 

Mr. WALLS. Yes, although I wouldn’t necessarily agree, Mr. 

Pallone, with Mr. Igrejas’ comments regarding asbestos and PBTs 

because the discussion draft limits in no way EPA’s discretion to 

identify true priorities. But other than that, yes, we support 

changes. 

Mr. PALLONE. Dr. Bosley? 

Mr. BOSLEY. We support as well. 

Mr. PALLONE. Ms. Thomas? 

Ms. THOMAS. We support as well. 

Mr. IGREJAS. Yes. 

Mr. PALLONE. OK. And well, again, I got through this fairly 

quickly. I guess when you ask yes or no questions, it is easier to 

get through everything quickly. 

So I just want to again thank the chairman for working with us 

as we move forward to get this done. Thanks again. I yield back. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. The Chair 

now recognizes the gentleman from Oregon, Mr. Schrader, 5 minutes. 

Mr. SCHRADER. I pass, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman passes, and the Chair recognizes 

the gentleman from California, Mr. McNerney, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to 

say I appreciate your bipartisan work in getting this draft ready. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Don’t let that information out. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. OK. I will be careful not to. 

Mr. Igrejas, I am going to ask about the catch-22 provision here. 

I don’t think that has been asked yet. 

The ‘‘may present unreasonable risk’’, could you explain why that 

is a catch-22 and what we can do about that in the draft? 

Mr. IGREJAS. Sure. I think the lesson of TSCA, and because of 

the approach in this draft, I think it got a lot of us looking back 

at original TSCA more, and you read it, and there are a lot of 

things that sound reasonable, they sound like they should have 

worked, and it just turned out that when a court got into them and 

EPA anticipating that, they didn’t. They really turned out to be significant barriers to EPA acting, and I think this would be in this 

category. On its face, it sounds like before EPA should get started, 

shouldn’t they decided well, this might be something that is a problem, but the history I think of this statute and of EPA interpreting 

is that it could trip them up substantially. If they really have to 

show that it may before they undertake the evaluation to see if it 

does, it seems unnecessary in the spirit of the more stripped-down 

approach in expediting them taking action. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. OK. Now, the heightened standard of judicial review, EPA actions taken under TSCA must be supported by substantial evidence in the rulemaking record, and that is a substanVerDate Mar 15 2010 09:35 Aug 31, 2015 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00083 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\114THCONGRESS\114X30XTSCA2015\114X30XTSCA2015XWORKING WAYNE
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tially higher—well, that is significantly higher than the ‘‘arbitrary 

and capricious’’ standard that is normally used for EPA rules. 

Could you comment on how that could be improved in the TSCA? 

Mr. IGREJAS. We think taking it out would be the improvement 

in having ‘‘arbitrary and capricious’’ apply to this statute as well. 

One of the things I think is lost is, it is not just that the court 

threw out the EPA rulemaking on asbestos but that because of substantial evidence, it took EPA 10 years to put together that record. 

I think it was a 40,000-page record. And so it has an impact on 

how much time—how much EPA feels it has to put under its feet 

in order to go forth and make a rulemaking in addition to the risk 

of something getting thrown out of court. So I feel it being removed 

would put it in line with other environmental laws. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, my understanding is, the ‘‘supported by 

substantial evidence in the rulemaking record’’ is what prevented 

the rules on asbestos from being implemented. 

Mr. IGREJAS. That is right. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. And that is clearly, you know, a disadvantage. 

Mr. IGREJAS. It was the third leg of the stool, so to speak, in preventing EPA from taking action on asbestos. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. 

Seeing no other members present, I want to thank the panel for 

coming. It was a pretty good hearing. I think there are things that 

we want to continue to discuss. I did announce a date for a subcommittee mark, and the only thing I will say too is, as we move 

forward, we don’t have to get it prefect right the first bite. We have 

subcommittee, we have full committee. Then hopefully the Senate 

will move something. We go to conference. There are going to be 

a lot of opportunities. But I appreciate the positive comments from 

all my colleagues. I understand the issues that they have concerns 

on. We look forward to really having an opportunity to get this 

thing done, and we look for your input to be able to do that. 

So I will dismiss the second panel, and I will ask unanimous consent that all members of the subcommittee have five legislative 

days to submit opening statements for the record. 

I also ask unanimous consent that the following letters to the 

subcommittee regarding the discussion draft at our hearing today 

be included in the record. The letters are from the American Cleaning Institute, the Environmental Working Group, the Bipartisan 

Policy Center, Society of Toxicologists, the American Alliance for 

Justice, and a statement by Dr. Paul Locke. Without objection, so 

ordered. 

[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.] 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And I will adjourn the hearing. 

[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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