27 



Mr. Guerrero. — and I believe that what we're talking about 

 here is shifting the burden to industry for new chemical testing. 

 Everyone basically concedes the new chemical process works better 

 than other aspects of TSCA. For the existing chemicals, I believe 

 everyone says that the process is not working as well because of 

 the burdens that the EPA has to bear in order to collect the data 

 needed to assess and regulate the chemicals. It's not easy for it to 

 get the data and promulgate test rules. It's a lengthy and expen- 

 sive process, and involves confrontational issues. That area too de- 

 serves a lot of attention, and I think Congressman Synar laid out 

 a general framework in his opening remarks this morning suggest- 

 ing how we might deal with existing chemicals because we can't ig- 

 nore them. They constitute about 60,000 of the chemicals out there. 



Now, the EPA says only maybe 14,000 to 16,000 of those are of 

 concern 



Senator Reid. But that's still a lot. 



Mr. Guerrero. That's still an awful lot, and the EPA does not 

 have the resources to deal with those. If they promulgated 32 test 

 rules over the history of TSCA and there's 14,000 chemicals out 

 there, simple arithmetic will indicate the magnitude of the problem 

 that they're faced with. 



So this is an area where I think in Congressman Synar's model 

 there's a lot of merit to looking for improving the testing proce- 

 dures for existing chemicals. There's a lot of merit to requiring 

 some type of priority setting where those chemicals are looked at 

 as groups and dealt with as clusters based on perhaps use, as the 

 EPA suggested. The EPA could be given a very specific framework 

 in which to do that, and time frames and expectations for conduct- 

 ing those reviews. 



Senator Reid. My point is from a strictly legal proposition. It 

 would seem to me one standard would relate to the burden of 

 showing that a product you want to use is safe. But if you have 

 these tens of thousands already out there milling around some 

 place — or even using the EPA's figure, there's about 15,000 — it 

 would seem to me that this standard of proof would be different for 

 those than the new ones. That's my point. 



Yes? 



Dr. SiLBERGELD. I would be troubled by "different standards of 

 proof," if I understand your phrase, and perhaps if I respond incor- 

 rectly, you can help me. I would hope that our criteria for judgment 

 would be the same. The one thing certainly we don't want to do is 

 discourage innovation and the possibility of safer substitutes 



Senator Reid. I would agree with that. Dr. Silbergeld. My point 

 is — maybe I termed it wrong, but all of these things are out there 

 floating around some place and we, in effect, have through stand- 

 ard use and practice said that they are out on the market under 

 this criteria. I don't see how you can go back and undo that for the 

 15,000 things that we have a concern about. For the new ones it's 

 easy to set up a standard. We're simply saying, okay, manufac- 

 turer, you give us the proof that this is safe or that it doesn't come 

 in contact with humans. 



For those that are already out there, it would seem to me that 

 we, the government, has the burden to show that those are unsafe. 



