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Policy

TSCA Inventory Available For Free

by Cheryl Hogue
March 22, 2010 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 88, Issue 12

EPA is now providing the public with free access to the Toxic Substances Control Act inventory of chemicals in commerce. The inventory contains 84,000 entries, although not all of these chemicals are currently in production. And the identities of 17,000 inventory listings do not appear on the public version of the TSCA inventory because manufacturers have claimed the chemicals’ identities as trade secrets. Until now, the nonconfidential version of the inventory was available only through purchase from a government distributor, such as the National Technical Information Service. Making the public version of the TSCA inventory available for free is one of the administrative reforms EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson is instituting in the agency to make information on commercial chemicals more readily available to the public. “It’s public information. It should be free,” says William E. Allmond IV, vice president of government relations for the Society of Chemical Manufacturers & Affiliates, a trade group of mainly small and medium-sized companies. However, EPA should explain to the public that the list may not accurately reflect the number of chemicals in commerce, Allmond adds. For years, SOCMA has asked the agency to reset the inventory so it lists only substances that are currently in commercial production. The TSCA inventory is downloadable at http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/existingchemicals/pubs/tscainventory/index.html.

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