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I would like to take a moment to introduce Ray Smith who is 

 with me today. He is the evaluator in charge of the work we're 

 doing for your subcommittee. 



We commend you for holding this hearing on the issues the Con- 

 gress will need to consider in reauthorizing the Toxic Substances 

 Control Act, which is one "of the most promising but under-utilized 

 pieces of environmental legislation. Our testimony is based on on- 

 going work for your subcommittee on the EPA's implementation of 

 this law. 



If history is any guide, Mr. Chairman, you have your work cut 

 out for you. I brought with me the transcripts from prior TSCA 

 hearings. The first held over a decade ago is entitled, "The Toxic 

 Substances Control Act Oversight." So 5 years later in 1988 con- 

 gressional impatience with the EPA's slow progress resulted in a 

 hearing called "Whatever Happened to the Toxic Substances Con- 

 trol Act?" Congressional impatience turned to dissatisfaction when 

 in June of 1990, the hearing was entitled, "The Failure of the 

 Toxics Substances Testing Program." And the more recent one just 

 prior to this hearing today is entitled, "Toxics Substances Control: 

 Still Waiting After All These Years," and, indeed, Mr. Chairman, 

 we are still waiting. 



When TSCA was enacted in 1976, there were about 60,000 

 chemicals in commercial use. Today, another 1,000 or so are added 

 each year, and there are some 72,000 chemicals in the TSCA inven- 

 tory. While some of these chemicals pose no real threat to our 

 health and environment, concerns do exist about many others. 

 TSCA was intended to help the EPA identify such chemicals, gath- 

 er information on their health and environmental effects, and take 

 appropriate regulatory action to address those chemicals that posed 

 an unreasonable risk. Yet, today the EPA has reviewed only about 

 two percent of the existing chemicals in TSCA's inventory and has 

 issued regulations to control only nine chemicals under TSCA. 



Part of the EPA's limited progress in assessing chemicals is at- 

 tributed to the fact that the agency itself bears the enormous bur- 

 den of determining chemical effects. Rather than requiring chemi- 

 cal manufacturers to demonstrate the safety of their products, 

 TSCA requires the EPA to search available data on these chemicals 

 to make assumptions that may or may not be correct when such 

 data is not available and to proceed to obtain additional data 

 through lengthy, costly rule-making. As you heard this morning, 

 only about 30 of these rules have been issued. 



Companies preparing to manufacture new chemicals are not re- 

 quired to develop and provide the EPA with data other than that 

 which is readily available. Such data are often extremely limited 

 and less than half of all premanufacture notices contain toxicity in- 

 formation. Furthermore, the information that the notices do pro- 

 vide on chemical production and usage can change substantially 

 once these chemicals are marketed and manufacturers are not re- 

 quired to amend their premanufacture notices to show such 

 changes. 



For existing chemicals, almost all of the burden for determining 

 chemical safety is placed on the EPA, which does not have the in- 

 formation or resources necessary to review the tens of thousands 

 of chemicals in use. The EPA has identified more than 14,000 



