CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2016
| Author | Botos, Ágnes |
|---|---|
| Title | Industrial Chemical Regulation in the European Union and the United States: A Comparison of REACH & the Bipartisan TSCA Reform Bills |
| Summary | The European Union can claim to have the most ambitious chemical legislation in the world, called REACH regulation. The EU is actively spreading knowledge of REACH around the globe, thereby encouraging foreign governments to contemplate the adoption of REACH. As a result, REACH is exerting influence on environmental policy discussions in many countries. In the United States, the chemical industry, the authority, and environmental advocacy groups have expressed interest in modernization of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976, the major U.S. regulatory law applicable to industrial chemicals. It has been theorized based on ‘California effect’ that Europe may seek to export its stricter environmental standards under REACH to the United States. Thus, it is interesting to examine whether the environmental, health, and safety practices and values found in REACH are impacting the TSCA reform debate in the US. There is a gap in the literature: a comparison of REACH and the bipartisan TSCA reform bills –S.1009, S.697 and H.R.2576 - from health and safety point of view has not been undertaken. I chose to focus the comparison on the following issues: data development, priorities for safety assessments, safety standards, restrictions on chemical use, and preemption of regulatory activity by lower levels of government. There are three major findings. First, none of the TSCA reform bills implemented the EU’s radical solution of putting the burden of data generation, risk assessment, and risk management on industry. Second, REACH is more precautionary in its design than the TSCA reform bills. All the TSCA reform bills left unchanged the current U.S stance that an existing chemical is presumed safe until it is proven unsafe by the government. Third, the TSCA reform bills are generally less strict than REACH in their requirements on industry. I also analyzed REACH and TSCA through a comparative risk assessment case study. I conclude that, to effectively accelerate the number of existing chemicals subject to risk assessment, EPA should simplify the risk assessment process, perhaps in ways that are already being implemented by EPA for new chemicals. The case study analysis found that the technical practices of risk assessment for new chemicals in the US are theoretically similar to what EU industry prepares for REACH registration of new and existing substances. The EU and the US have started working on limited harmonization of chemical legislation through the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and have identified four main areas for policy convergence. Out of these four areas, I made a detailed analysis of possible cooperation in the classification and labeling of industrial chemicals. The attempt to export the stricter EU chemical standard in REACH failed in the case of USA, and US decision makers are unlikely to reform TSCA based on the REACH model. I can conclude that REACH’s key principles and elements were not adopted in any of the bipartisan TSCA reform bills in the US. |
| Supervisor | Illés, Zoltán |
| Department | Environment Sciences and Policy PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2016/botos_agnes.pdf |
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