Tsca Modernization Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. PITTENGER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for this very sensible legislation. I appreciate his efforts in leading a bipartisan effort to reform U.S. chemical safety law that is decades in the making.

I particularly thank him for securing amendments to section 9 of the TSCA law that remain in the negotiated text. These amendments reemphasize and strengthen Congress' intent that TSCA serve as an authority of last resort for the regulation of a chemical when another authority under EPA's jurisdiction, or another Federal agency, already regulates the chemical and the risk identified by EPA.

As a unified whole, TSCA now makes clear that EPA may not promulgate a rule under section 6 of TSCA to restrict or eliminate the use of a chemical when:

Number one, the agency either already regulates that chemical through a different statute under its own control, like the Clean Air Act, and that authority sufficiently protects against a risk of injury to human health or the environment; or

Number two, a different agency already regulates that chemical in a manner that also sufficiently protects against the risk already identified by EPA.

Mr. Speaker, in light of yet another regulatory overreach in the rulemaking at EPA, the new amendments to section 9 of TSCA are a welcome reform with the intent that it will help restrain the agency's unnecessary activities. These are commonsense, but important, protections given what EPA is likely to pursue.

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