Lynn L. Bergeson and Richard E. Engler, Ph.D., “Optimizing the Toxic Substances Control Act to Achieve Greener Chemicals,” NR&E, Summer 2022.

The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) offers tremendous unrealized potential to promote the development of more sustainable industrial chemicals. Despite the fact that Congress significantly amended TSCA in 2016 specifically to diminish the human health and environmental footprint of industrial chemicals, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is interpreting the revised law in ways that ironically discourage the commercialization of new chemicals and reinforce a “new chemical bias” that undermines the commercialization of greener, more sustainable industrial chemicals. This article explores the EPA policies and practices that blunt the commercialization of promising, more sustainable industrial chemicals and offers recommendations to optimize TSCA to achieve greener chemicals.