A group of federal lawmakers, backed by Big Chemical, is proposing to weaken what environmental advocates said is “the nation’s most important law protecting the public from toxic chemicals.”
As part of the proposed “sweeping overhaul” of the Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA, experts said legislators want to eliminate the public’s right to file citizen petitions — a right enshrined in TSCA since it was first passed in 1976.
Citizen petitions allow citizens to file civil actions to compel rulemaking on chemicals that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has failed to regulate — and to sue the EPA if it denies their petitions.
It was just such a petition that led to the September 2025 “landmark” decision by a federal judge, who ruled that current levels of fluoride added to community water systems pose an “unreasonable risk” to children’s health.
The judge ordered the agency to take action to regulate the chemical. The EPA is appealing the decision.
The win was a “landmark” because it represented the first time a citizen petition filed under the TSCA led to a lawsuit that won — or even made it to trial — in a federal court.
Robert Sussman, former EPA deputy administrator, told The Defender that the proposed changes to TSCA are “basically intended to prevent courts from doing exactly what the court did” in the fluoride case.
Michael Connett, the attorney representing the plaintiffs in the fluoridelawsuit, said that if the proposed changes had been law in 2016 when they filed their petition, “we would never have been able to access the court to challenge water fluoridation.”
If the proposed changes go through, “it will prevent future plaintiffs from forcing EPA to take action on chemicals that it is overlooking or ignoring,” Connett said.
Connett said he had no doubt the proposed changes were a direct response to the success of the lawsuit. “In fact, I have heard from multiple sources that our case has been viewed with great displeasure by the ‘regulated community,’ which is another way of saying industry.”
TSCA is a ‘tool to force honesty, accountability, and transparency in government’
Congress included the citizen petition in TSCA explicitly to “ensure that bureaucratic lethargy does not prevent the appropriate administration of this vital authority” to regulate risky chemicals, according to a brief for the fluoride lawsuit.
The U.S. Senate report that accompanied the law underscored the importance of the citizen petition to protect against “lax administration” of the law, giving citizens the power to force the EPA to focus on the part of the bill that protects the public from the dangers of toxic chemicals.
In the brief, Connett noted that courts have described the TSCA as having “unusually powerful procedures for citizens to force EPA’s hand.”
Not only does it allow citizens to ask the EPA to regulate dangerous chemicals, but it also gives them the power to ask the court to review the agency’s decision in a “de novo” proceeding if EPA denies the request.
A “de novo” review means that the court reviews available evidence without deference to the agency’s position — a mandate unique to the TSCA.
Evidence presented in a “de novo” review formed the basis for U.S. District Judge Edward Chen’s ruling in favor of the plaintiffs in the fluoride lawsuit.
Stuart Cooper, executive director of the Fluoride Action Network, a plaintiff in the case, described the TSCA as “a tool to force honesty, accountability, and transparency in government,” and a “way for citizens to fight bureaucratic inertia and force government to follow the laws meant to protect public health.”
Cooper said the law gave plaintiffs the unique opportunity to have the science on fluoride objectively evaluated by a judge, “rather than by bureaucrats who are beholden to long-standing policy or who are captured by special interest groups.”
The TSCA also allowed them to depose — under oath — representatives of the American Dental Association, EPA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Science Foundation.
For example, in a 2018 deposition, the director of the CDC’s Division of Oral Health, Casey Hannan, testified that the CDC was unable to cite studiesshowing fluoride is effective when swallowed. He also conceded that the CDC doesn’t know what level of fluoride is safe for the brain.
During the 2024 trial, the EPA’s key witness, risk assessor Stanley Barone, Ph.D., was compelled to concede that fluoride is neurotoxic to children at levels significantly lower than currently allowed by the EPA, and that fluoride qualifies as a neurotoxicant under the EPA’s risk assessment framework.
Given these and many other revelations by government representatives, “It has been clear throughout our litigation that EPA does not want its scientists to have to undergo the scrutiny of depositions and cross-examination,” Connett said.
Proposed changes to TSCA also dismantle other protections against hazardous chemicals
The proposed changes to TSCA — debated in a hearing of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce last week — go beyond eliminating the citizen petition.
Sussman said the proposed overhaul would make it “very, very difficult for EPA to prohibit or restrict unsafe chemicals” by setting an extremely high standard of proof.
Secondly, he said, the proposed changes would roll back provisions of the law that were strengthened in 2016 regarding how EPA reviews and potentially restricts new chemicals that are not yet on the market.
The chemical industry argues these changes are necessary. It claims the agency is hurting innovation in the chemical industry by raising concerns about new chemicals that the industry says are safe.
Katie Hobbs, director of federal affairs for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which strongly opposes the changes, said, “Making America more contaminated by toxic chemicals linked to cancer, infertility, and neurological diseases like Parkinson’s is one of the worst ideas of all time.”
“Yet, this is what some House Republicans have embraced, cynically doing the bidding of the chemical industry, without regard for how this will adversely impact the health of the people they represent. This draft bill should be dead on arrival,” she added.
Original article online at: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/industry-lobbies-congress-to-weaken-key-protections-against-toxic-chemicals/