Legislators Ask White House To Drop EPA Chemical Rule

Two key House of Representatives lawmakers are asking the White House to withdraw a pending EPA regulation on the data that chemical makers must periodically report to the agency. The rule, under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), is undergoing high-level Administration review, and EPA is expected to issue it later this year. Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and John M. Shimkus (R-Ill.) last week asked Jacob J. Lew, director of the White House Office of Management & Budget, to pull the plug on the rule. Upton, chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, and Shimkus, who heads the panel’s subcommittee that oversees TSCA, said the proposal would impose unwarranted burdens on the chemical industry. Under the George W. Bush Administration, EPA extended the reporting period from every four years, which it had been for decades, to every five years. The agency now wants to go back to every four years, a move the two lawmakers call “needless.” They also said that the proposed rule would be too costly because companies would have to supply more information than they do now about production and uses of their substances.