Alan Reinstein and Trevor Schaefer Toxic Chemical Protection Act
Latest action. Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Alan Reinstein and Trevor Schaefer Toxic Chemical Protection Act
This bill amends the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to revise the regulation of chemicals.
A safety standard is established to ensure with reasonable certainty that no harm to human health or the environment will result from exposure to a chemical under the intended or reasonable foreseeable conditions of use. The standard includes the protection of potentially exposed or susceptible populations. The standard does not take cost or other non-risk factors into consideration.
The bill expands the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) authority to require the development of new information about a chemical.
By specified deadlines, the EPA must designate a certain number of existing chemicals as high or low priority for safety assessments and determinations and conduct risk-based safety assessments and determinations for high priority chemicals. Low-priority designations are subject to judicial review.
The EPA must prohibit or restrict the manufacture, processing, use, distribution, or disposal of a new chemical, or a significant new use of an existing chemical, if the chemical will not likely meet the safety standard, or additional information is necessary to make a safety determination.
If a chemical does not meet the safety standard, the EPA must impose restrictions to assure that it meets the standard, or ban or phase out the chemical when the safety standard cannot be met with the application of those restrictions.
The EPA may declare a proposed rule effective upon publication to protect the public interest when certain activities involving chemicals are likely to result in a significant risk of serious or widespread injury to health or the environment.
The EPA must: (1) list all forms of asbestos as high-priority chemicals; and (2) expedite identification, assessment, and action on persistent, bio-accumulative, and toxic chemicals.
Confidential business information claims to protect information related to chemicals must be substantiated by manufacturers or processors and reviewed by the EPA. The bill sets forth the types of information that are protected from disclosure and the duration of such protection.
The summary continues for 2 more paragraphs. Read it in full on Congress.gov
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Introduced in Senate" stage on March 12, 2015. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on March 12, 2015: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the Senate
- Passage by the House
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 114th Congress (2015-16), 329 of the 10,233 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 3.2 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
BARBARA BOXER (D-CA) introduced it on March 12, 2015, and 5 members have since signed on as cosponsors.
They are 4 Democrats, 1 independent.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on March 12, 2015, 4200 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 4200 days ago, on March 12, 2015.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 114th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2017 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- SenateIn committee, no floor vote yet
- HouseAwaits Senate passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers