Paul Tonko: “I thank the gentleman from New Jersey and our ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Committee, Representative…”

“I thank the gentleman from New Jersey and our ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Committee, Representative Pallone, for yielding. Mr. Speaker, 40 years ago, Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act, which created a Federal program to manage the risks associated with our Nation's industrial chemicals. That law, TSCA, has never met that need. As a result, the public has lost confidence in this Federal program. The many failings of the current law have been pointed out in reports, reports issued by the Government Accountability Office and others. Well-intentioned attempts over the years to address some of the problems administratively or through voluntary agreements amongst the Environmental Protection Agency, the chemical industry, and the environmental and public health communities have failed. The public has too little information about the safety of chemicals that they are exposed to every day in virtually every product that they use. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence of harm to people's health, EPA is unable to regulate exposure to toxic chemicals. Congress had to step in and explicitly legislate to gain public health and environmental protections from PCBs, for instance, and asbestos. Because of the regulatory vacuum at the Federal level, some States have legislated to secure protections for their citizens. In some cases, large retailers have initiated their own chemical policies to respond to what are consumers' concerns.…”