The American Bar Association Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources has released a series of legal white papers that analyze the Toxic Substances Control Act and are intended to serve as a legal resource and provide information necessary for sound public policy development. The reports address four areas of the law that are under review as part of bipartisan congressional efforts to reform the 37-year-old law.
The resources, available online at www.ambar.org/EnvironTSCA, include a legal overview of the current TSCA statute and four white papers that target challenging legal issues raised by TSCA reform:
• Management of trade secret and confidential business information.
• Development of federal pre-emption policies governing state tort law.
• Development of federal pre-emption policies governing state statutes and regulation.
• Development of appropriate legal standards to guide regulatory action.
Legal practitioner volunteers from SEER’s Pesticide, Chemical Regulation, and Right to Know Committee, which includes more than 200 practitioners representing diverse political and policy views, developed the white papers with the help of the section’s Special Committee on Congressional Relations.
The 2014 white paper series builds on prior efforts to encourage meaningful dialogue on the value of chemical control reform. In 2010, the section published a white paper offering “Practical Advice for TSCA Reform” by four former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulatory officials. In 2011, the section spearheaded the adoption of ABA resolution No. 118, urging Congress to enact legislation to reform TSCA.
