Toxic Substances Regulation

Howard W. Mielke

A key component of everyday life in industrial-urban society in the 21st century is the use of large quantities of chemicals. About 83,000 chemicals are listed for commercial use in the United States. Some are highly hazardous and pose a range of toxicities; many are human-made and xenobiotic (foreign) to life on our planet. In 1976, the U.S. Congress, in an effort to control unreasonable risks to human health and adverse impacts on the environment associated with hazardous chemicals, passed the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) authorizing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to control these chemicals. TSCA places the burden of proof on the EPA to demonstrate that a chemical poses a risk to human health or the environment and provides the agency with two different authorities for controlling chemicals: For new chemicals, defined as any of about 21,000 chemicals introduced in 1979 or later, if the agency determines that ...

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