On July 12, 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published in the Federal Register three separate notices related to the long-awaited Nanoscale Materials Stewardship Program (NMSP) under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). All of the notices and accompanying documents are available online.

The federal law that regulates new and existing chemical substances, including engineered nanoscale chemical substances, is the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). While there is much debate over how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should deploy its significant TSCA authority to address potential risks to human health and the environment posed by engineered nanoscale materials, there is no doubt that EPA is already doing so. This article provides a general overview of TSCA as it relates to new and existing chemical substances, and discusses how EPA may go about discharging its significant TSCA authority with respect to engineered nanoscale substances. 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Pollution Prevention and Toxics Advisory Committee (NPPTAC) forwarded to EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson on November 22, 2005, its document entitled Overview of Issues for Consideration by NPPTAC. The Overview of Issues document sets forth NPPTAC’s “analysis and views” on a framework for a voluntary program on existing engineered nanoscale materials. The framework is intended to complement the new nanoscale chemicals requirements promulgated under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

In a May 10, 2005, Federal Register notice, EPA announced, in an understated way, its decision to convene a public meeting on 'nanoscale materials.' The meeting notice represents the Agency's first public foray into harnessing some of nanotechnology’s promise within a regulatory framework created almost three decades ago with the enactment of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).