Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) At Risk
Oregon lawmakers have long worked hard to protect Oregonians from hazardous chemicals. From getting harmful chemicals out of children’s products to banning PFAS in firefighting foam, Oregonians have fought for – and won – critical protections that keep our families safe.
State-level wins like these are crucial for protecting our communities from environmental harms. As things currently stand, the Toxic Substances Control Act (or “TSCA”) allows for states to take this type of action. But a threatened federal rollback now aims to weaken it through a death by a thousand cuts, putting polluter profits over public health and threatening the progress we’ve made here at home.
What is TSCA?
TSCA is America’s chemical safety law, governing how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates existing and new chemicals. This impacts the products we use in our homes, the materials found in schools and the hazards workers encounter on the job.
Right now, TSCA specifically allows state-level regulations. While the federal government has made some progress, states have led the way in regulating pollutants like mercury, flame retardants, PFAS, heavy metals, and more. These state laws have spurred safer markets and inspired additional federal action. But now, Congress is threatening to roll back the state autonomy granted by TSCA, putting all the power in the hands of the federal government.
In the weeks leading up to a January 22 House Subcommittee on Environment hearing about TSCA, OEC and more than 250 organizations nationwide – including environmental health groups, labor unions, and advocacy organizations – urged Congress to reject this industry-driven attempt to roll back chemical safety protections.
More than 300 state legislators sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to reject the chemical industry’s efforts to weaken the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the main federal law governing chemicals made, imported, or used in the U.S.
This recent hearing was the first of likely many to come, and as such is only the start to the story. Here’s what we learned.
Hearing overview
The January 22 hearing began with concerns from Representative Paul Tonko (D-NY) about the draft TSCA changes, arguing that rolling back protections “would fundamentally weaken the core public health protections provided by our nation’s chemical safety regulatory program. It would make it harder for EPA to test, evaluate and restrict new and existing dangerous chemicals. It creates numerous new opportunities for litigation against the [EPA] agency, and it guts protections for workers.”
Dr. Tracey Woodruff, PhD, MPH (Professor and Director, University of California, San Francisco) shared her concerns: “The chemical lobby has spent millions to undermine TSCA, and this bill gives them their money’s worth… essentially putting the chemical industry in charge.” She went on to say that exposure to toxic chemicals “ increase[s] the risk of cancer, infertility, neurological and cardiovascular disease, parkinsons, adverse birth outcomes and ADHD, conditions increasing in the U.S.”
American Industry
Chemical industry lobbyists complained that EPA has been approving chemicals too slowly, interfering with American innovation. Representative Brett Guthrie (R-KY) worried that “the US is being left behind by our international rivals as lengthy delays at EPA’s new chemical review process drives manufacturing opportunities and jobs abroad.”
Dr. Woodruff emphasized the importance of existing safeguards, reminding the committee that “Congress updated TSCA in 2016 because EPA could not even ban asbestos, a known human carcinogen that killed thousands of people.” Then she went on to say that, “thanks to changes in 2016, dangerous substances like TCE [Trichloroethylene] and asbestos, chemicals that have already taken a health toll on millions of Americans, will finally be banned, and that’s what the public wants. In a recent nationwide survey over 90% of voters want the government to do a better job protecting the public from toxic harms.”
Worker Safety
American Chemistry Council affiliated Dr. White complained about existing protections for workers, stating, “EPA’s use of overly conservative assumptions and unlikely exposure scenarios based on a mischaracterization of the workplace environment has also led to flawed and inflated risk estimates of existing chemicals, resulting in every evaluated chemical being labeled an unreasonable risk since 2016.” What that means is that the American Chemistry Council wants the EPA to assume workers have perfect, fit tested respirators when considering workplace hazards. If that respirator fails and a worker gets sick or dies – that’s a failure of their personal protective equipment (PPE), with no consideration of the inherent chemical risk. Dr. Woodruff weighed in on the side of worker safety in her remarks that, “this draft codifies bad science, including putting up barriers to evaluating real life exposures, aggregate exposures, and [the draft] assumes PPE is fully used.” PPE is never perfect and this bill would result in hazards that become catastrophic whenever PPE fails.
PFAS & TSCA
It was clear that going backwards on this chemical safety law would make addressing PFAS (also known as “forever chemicals”) more difficult. Representative Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ) felt that the law before the 2016 TSCA improvements, “fell far short of [the goals of examining and restricting chemicals that pose an unreasonable risk to human health and the environment], and for … a long time there were too many communities that carried the burden of toxic exposures. That was made clear during our December [2025] PFAS hearing when Emily Donovan [Co-Founder, Clean Cape Fear] delivered the stories of friends and loved ones lost too soon because of … unchecked actions by chemical companies …Time and again we see how vulnerable communities bear the brunt of weak chemical safety protection.”
Representative Paul David Tonko (D-NY) also considered the importance of addressing persistent chemicals such as PFAS with a strong TSCA when he stated that, “this program is our first line of defense against preventing costly superfund cleanups and drinking water treatments in the future. We need to keep dangerous chemicals out of our environment in the first place.” These companies have a financial motive to minimize EPA regulations, which will come at the expense of public health and we need an empowered EPA to represent the public.”
Why it Matters: Oregon’s Toxic-Free Victories at Risk
This draft bill weakens EPA’s authority to restrict harmful chemicals, putting workers, children and families at risk. It would also hinder Oregon lawmakers from passing more protective policies such as laws that reduce toxic chemicals in children’s products and cosmetics and protect workers from unnecessary exposures to chemicals in firefighting foam. If the federal government decides it’s safe, infants would no longer be protected from baby bottles containing bisphenol A because such Oregon laws would effectively be wiped off the books. We’re talking about substances linked to cancer in adults and children, reproductive harm, birth defects, asthma, developmental delays in children, hormone disruption, and both immediate health threats as well as more chronic conditions.
Taking Action
This fight isn’t over, and your voice matters.
- Contact Congress to tell them how you feel about this developing threat!
- Sign up for our action alert emails. We’ll keep you informed about ways to make your voice heard when it counts.
- Become a member of OEC with your donation today. 100% of OEC’s revenue comes from individuals, foundations, and philanthropic giving. Your support powers our ability to show up and fight for the health protections Oregonians deserve.
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