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could, therefore, bear the burden of testing for these chemicals. 

 About half of the chemicals submitted to EPA are never marketed. 



So it would make a lot of sense from government's perspective 

 and from industry's perspective to shift that, but then to shift to 

 a premarketing requirement from a premanufacturing require- 

 ment. 



Senator Reid. Yes? 



Dr. SiLBERGELD. I think your approach is entirely rational. As 

 someone who conducts toxicology research in the laboratory, I don't 

 understand how one could reach any judgments without informa- 

 tion. I see no barrier economic or otherwise to requiring something 

 ansdogous to the OECD base set of the SIDS program for new 

 chemicals. Whether that should be applied at the 

 premanufacturing or the premarketing level is something that 

 might take some useful commentary from industry, labor, and oth- 

 ers as to the advantages and disadvantages. But to continue to op- 

 erate in the absence of information I think is not supportable. 



The assertions that in some way asserted lack of exposure can 

 countenance lack of data also need intense scrutiny, particularly 

 given the lack of any real oversight or enforceability related to the 

 information asserting no exposure. I'm sure I don't need to remind 

 this committee that in fact the creation of TSCA was spurred in 

 large part by concerns over the recognition that a chemical for 

 which there was purportedly no exposure because of the way it was 

 used had in fact resulted in worldwide contamination, and that is 

 the polychlorinated biphenyls. I think scrutiny of claims of con- 

 trolled uses, closed and controlled uses, confined intermediates — 

 Bhophal, for example — need to be examined with a great deal of 

 skepticism, and I would suggest that at a minimum any claim of 

 lack of exposure as a reason for doing less than adequate testing 

 must be backed up by an enforceable commitment by industry to 

 actually monitor for exposure. 



Dr. MuiR. Sir, I guess I have a different viewpoint. We've got 

 tens of thousands of chemicals in commerce and hundreds of thou- 

 sands of different uses, and many, many new ones occurring all the 

 time, and they're at the heart of our economy. I think that, in con- 

 trast to a situation where a limited number of pharmaceuticals or 

 pesticides come on the market and could go through an explicit 

 government review and approval process, our economy should dic- 

 tate something more similar to the process which has worked, I 

 think, relatively well in the premanufacture notice review provi- 

 sions of TSCA. 



But having said that, I think one of the problems is that the bur- 

 den is on the part of the agency, and I think that it really should 

 be the burden of those submitting the premanufacture notices to 

 carry out an assessment and develop sufficient information to be 

 able to demonstrate that a category of use — and I don't mean spe- 

 cific applications — ^but broad categories of uses, such as dispersive 

 uses in consumer products or industrially intermediate uses, are 

 appropriate. 



Senator Reid. So in that regard, you are saying that the burden 

 should shift? 



