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ARTICLE · 27 JUNE 2016

TSCA Reform Enacted

Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer LLP
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Additionally, the Act will speed the regulatory process by allowing EPA to require manufacturers to conduct the initial testing of their products, rather than having EPA perform the tests as was the case under the old law.

United StatesEnvironment
Theodore Lamm
Theodore Lamm
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On June 22, 2016, President Obama signed the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (Act), enacting a number of reforms to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that are aimed to modernize and streamline the federal law.

Enacted in 1976, TSCA required the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to identify and list the thousands of "existing" chemicals manufactured and sold at the time, and directed EPA to require manufacturers of "new" chemicals to evaluate the risks they pose and to notify the government before they were manufactured or processed. However, TSCA only permitted EPA to regulate these "new" chemicals if EPA determined that they presented unreasonable risks (taking costs into account), and then only in the "least burdensome" manner possible. It left "existing" chemicals altogether unregulated.

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