Washington — With Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress and the White House, they're now showing interest in revising toxic chemical safety rules that they say are holding back U.S. companies.
But Democrats in Congress, at a Jan. 22 hearing, were more focused on changes in the Toxic Substances Control Act to better limit risks to the public and workers from chemical exposure.
It's not clear yet what TSCA revisions could be coming in Congress, but some saw it as noteworthy that TSCA was the focus of the first hearing in this legislative session in the Republican-controlled House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Whatever Congress does, the interpretation of the nation's primary chemicals management law is likely to be increasingly important to the plastics industry.
President Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency is now set to take over TSCA human health reviews of legacy plastics feedstocks, including vinyl chloride and styrene, that were launched in President Joe Biden's administration.
The vinyl industry announced Jan. 8 that it had hired a former EPA official from Trump's first term to lead its response to the TSCA review. That official suggested a Trump EPA would look at TSCA risk evaluations differently than the Biden EPA.
At the Jan. 22 hearing, key lawmakers from both parties said they hoped to take a bipartisan approach to changes, although legislators from the two parties repeatedly offered differing visions for TSCA.
Republicans hit EPA for not reviewing new chemicals fast enough, and pointed to a GAO report in 2023 that said only 10 percent of new chemicals were reviewed in the time the law required.
Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., said Congress worked in a bipartisan fashion on the last major TSCA legislation, the 2016 Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act, but he criticized EPA's implementation of that law and said agency decisions are hurting the U.S. economy.
"It's still not working, at least in the way Congress intended," said Guthrie. "EPA's flawed decision-making process has consequently inhibited American innovation and our ability to compete in the global market."
But Democrats said the 2016 Lautenberg Act, which was the first major reform of TSCA since it originally passed in 1976, gave EPA significant new power to ban or restrict chemicals, like PFAS, and helped launch the reviews of vinyl chloride and other legacy chemicals.
Democrats faulted the first Trump administration for weak implementation and not acting to protect the public health.
"It quickly became clear that the first Trump EPA was not interested in implementing a strong federal chemical program," said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and the top Democrat on the committee.
One plastics industry trade group that testified at the hearing said it's not seeking to completely reopen the 2016 TSCA law but rather is looking for targeted changes.
"We are not looking to undo [or] rollback TSCA reforms," said American Chemistry Council CEO Chris Jahn. "We are looking to get common sense, science-based regulations."
In particular, ACC said it's focused on changes in TSCA user fees that chemical companies pay, and it wants Congress to put enforcement provisions in TSCA if EPA misses deadlines for chemical reviews. Congress has to reauthorize those user fees by 2026.
The hearing also touched on EPA regulations for plastics recycling.
A witness from the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Association argued that EPA has moved too slowly on finalizing 2023 regulations for using pyrolysis to recycle waste plastics, part of a suite of chemical recycling technologies also called advanced recycling.
Guthrie, the committee chairman, picked up on the point and asked if "it makes sense [for EPA] to impede our ability to scale advanced recycling and meet our sustainability goals."
Geoff Moody, AFPM senior vice president of government relations, called it a "critical technology if we're going to effectively address the issue of plastic waste in the environment."
Guthrie asked Moody why he thought the EPA had not finalized that regulation.
"I think there are probably different points of view on that and on how best to address the plastic waste issue, and I think people come at that in good faith," Moody said. "From our perspective this is critical, and you can't dismiss it."