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uses of toxic chemicals as essential intermediates to make important final chemical 

 products, such as pharmaceuticals. 



Little environmental progress can be expected under the current TSCA approach, 

 which" assumes that companies will continue their many and changing practices 

 with chemicals unless and until EPA, through a rule-making process, determines 

 that one or another of the chemicals presents an unreasonable risk. If we want com- 

 panies to be environmentally responsible in their use and sale of chemicals, we had 

 better decide what that means and articulate it clearly. Such a decision would help 

 define what "product stewardship" means for chemicals. 



Deliberations over TSCA's reauthorization provide Congress a special opportunity 

 to start defining norms to guide the use and sale of chemicals. Such norms would 

 address general issues, for example, the circumstances under which customers or 

 suppliers should be held accountable for the appropriate use of chemicals, allocation 

 of responsibilities for assessing potential risks of chemicals in commerce and for 

 safety testing of chemicals. Under the current TSCA, all of these are EPA respon- 

 sibilities — responsibilities that it has not and cannot conceivably fulfill. 



Some of these norms will be generic, but others are logically tied to use. The term 

 use' here does not refer to engineering functions (e.g., coloring agent or anti-oxi- 

 dant); rather, it refers to a relatively few large categories (perhaps a dozen or so, 

 with qualifiers such as "closed-system," "controlled use," "dispersive use," or "direct 

 exposure") for which it is reasonable to have different expectations as to what com- 

 panies should do. For example, a norm might be that chemicals which are persist- 

 ent, bioconcentrating, and toxic should not be used in dispersive uses, but can be 

 used as research chemicals or as closed-system chemical intermediates, so long as 

 they are handled with care. Similarly, norms may lead to an expectation that com- 

 panies find and use less toxic substitutes in instances where a chemical serves a 

 general industrial ftinction (e.g., heating fluid), but not when it is essential to a 

 process, such as a process-specific catalyst. (A "strawman" use category scheme fol- 

 lows this testimony, to illustrate what such a use scheme might look like.) 



Although these norms may seem the type of technical topic that Congress typi- 

 cally delegates to a regulatory agency, I believe that they are so fundamental to 

 redirecting the commerce of chemicals in environmentally desirable ways, that Con- 

 gress should explicitly include them in an overhauled TSCA. They represent impor- 

 tant social policy which is best not delegated to EPA, especially if such norms are 

 be made general duties under the Act, enforceable by EPA, by the states, or by af- 

 fected parties, as I believe they should. Without such a guiding scheme for manag- 

 ing toxics in commerce, progress in reducing and eliminating risks from toxic chemi- 

 cals in the environment will fail, as TSCA has failed. With such a guiding scheme, 

 industry can begin to make and keep effective commitments to product stewardship. 



2. Gather Information to Track Progress toward Norms for Toxic Chemicals in Com- 



merce 



EPA has broad information-gathering authorities under TSCA, but they are seri- 

 ously flawed. One problem is the inability to obtain chemical use data from users, 

 because the Act exempts articles. If use is an important basis for establishing norms 

 of behavior for chemicals in commerce-norms designed to reduce environmental 

 risks-then data on uses is essential to track progress. EPA needs the same authority 

 to collect use data fi-om users as it currently has for manufacturers and processors. 



EPA is considering the collection of a Chemical Use Inventory. Such an inventory 

 is potentially a very important, as use helps define the extent of risks from chemi- 

 cals as well as expectations about product stewardship. Information on the flow of 

 chemicals in commerce represents the largest gap in the type of information avail- 

 able on chemicals. Only the total absence of adequate health and safety data on 

 many chemicals approaches the size of the information gap on chemicals in com- 

 merce. 



3. Set Much Narrower Limits on Confidential Business Information (CBI) 



By far the largest problem with information under TSCA is confidential business 

 information (CBI). 



