50 Ways to . . . Chemical Management, State and Federal Government, and Preemption Paranoia Judah Prero J ust four months after President Barack H. Obama assumed the presidency on January 20, 2009, he issued a memorandum setting an important preemption policy for his Administration. www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_ office/Presidential-Memorandum-Regarding-Preemption. The memorandum directed the heads of executive departments and agencies that preemption of state law should be undertaken only with full consideration of the legitimate prerogatives of the states and with a sufficient legal basis for preemption. This significant policy issue warranted attention at the start of a new administration. The importance of this issue has been recognized not only by the executive branch of government but also by the legislative. Within the context of reform of the chemical management regulatory program under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the issue of preemption has become a political fulcrum. Numerous parties have given opinions specifically on this issue. Senator Barbara Boxer, chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, has stressed the importance of the ability of states, such as her home state of California, to regulate chemicals and has argued that that ability should remain unimpeded. The National Conference of State Legislatures has also provided general preemption-related concerns surrounding the ability of states to mandate testing or develop standards for chemical substances. Attorneys general from numerous states have opined on TSCA reform proposals, with the preemption issue being a significant focus of the comments. Some attorneys general expressed reservations, with fears that preemption provisions in a modernized TSCA would effectively eliminate any federal-state partnership on the regulation of toxic chemicals by preventing states from continuing legislative, regulatory, and enforcement work to address risks to public health and the environment posed by toxic chemicals. Other attorneys general have recognized the importance of a nationally reliable chemical regulatory program that avoids duplicative and conflicting regulatory schemes, and have supported preemption provisions that are coupled with provisions that give states specific remedial abilities. The issue of preemption is clearly significant in driving the political dynamics for reforming TSCA, and several key questions are worth exploring. How much oversight does the federal government have over chemical production and use, and what are the gaps that a state might need to fill? Have Mr. Prero is assistant general counsel to the American Chemistry Council in Washington, D.C. He may be reached at judah_prero@ americanchemistry.com. states been hindered in filling those gaps by the constraints of the federal chemical management system? Or are states just continuing the turf war established by the Constitution and federalism, national versus state government? This article explores the current role of the federal government in the sphere of chemical management, the nature of the regulatory power conferred upon EPA under TSCA, how states have handled chemical management issues, and whether the role of states in chemical management will truly be impacted under TSCA reform proposals. Many federal departments and agencies play a part in chemical management. Some have the authority to regulate and enforce standards and others focus on science and research that inform policy decisions. It is a complex system that encompasses monitoring, managing, regulating, investigating, and providing information on chemicals and chemical exposures. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates and monitors chemicals released into the air, waterways, and soil, and it sets standards for air quality, drinking water, and pesticide residues on soil. EPA’s chemicals program addresses pollution prevention, risk and exposure assessment, and the management of chemicals in commercial use. EPA ensures that communities have access to information about local chemical hazards and funds cleanups at abandoned sites. Statutes under the jurisdiction of EPA that regulate chemicals and chemical use include the Toxic Substances Control Act; the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act; the Clean Air Act, which includes the Accidental Release Prevention requirements and the Risk Management Plan Rule; the Safe Drinking Water Act; the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act; and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, which includes the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act. While often overlooked, other agencies also regulate chemical use. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) creates chemical standards for manufacturers and retailers of consumer products. CPSC enacted chemical standards, including those related to phthalates (a group of chemicals used to soften and increase the flexibility of plastic and vinyl), cadmium, and lead. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the Department of Health and Human Services ensures that food is safe to eat and that drugs and medical devices are safe to use. The FDA regulates pharmaceuticals and food additives and monitors ingredients in cosmetic products. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of the Department of Labor issues and enforces health and safety Published in Natural Resources & Environment Volume 29, Number 4, Spring 2015. © 2015 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association. standards to protect individuals from work-related injury and disease. OSHA has established mandatory exposure limits for nearly 500 substances and comprehensive health standards for materials such as asbestos, lead, and hexavalent chromium. Additional regulatory programs address other aspects of chemical use, such as transportation and security. Chemicals and their uses are regulated by a broad federal safety net comprised of a multitude of programs and many agencies. The federal government is involved as well in the research and monitoring of chemicals and exposure. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry investigates exposures to hazardous substances at sites nationwide and provides information concerning health impact information about specific chemicals and risk levels. The National Center for Environmental Health of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducts biomonitoring and reports on human exposures to chemicals, and conducts studies and provides technical assistance during emergency events and releases. The National Toxicology Program coordinates toxicological research efforts and collaborates with other agencies to increase data sharing. Accordingly, the federal government possesses a wealth of information concerning chemicals and chemical use and exposure. Yet, even with these regulatory and oversight programs in place, states have found areas in which to enact chemicalsrelated laws. These types of laws include restrictions on the use of bisphenol A (BPA) in food and beverage containers; restrictions on the use of certain flame retardants; reporting or warning programs; biomonitoring programs; and “Green Chemistry”-related programs. These laws have remained in effect, and preemption-related litigation has not ensued en masse. State laws also address only a sliver of what the federal government addresses under numerous programs. A robust federal system that addresses many aspects of chemical manufacture and use notwithstanding, some states insist that they must be allowed to do even more. This insistence by some states, that they must be allowed to regulate chemicals as they see fit, is true even if EPA’s role is expanded and enhanced in a modernized TSCA. On the other hand, industry proponents and others have serious concerns about allowing states to regulate beyond EPA requirements. TSCA: Police or Commerce? In U.S. constitutional law, police power is the capacity of the states to regulate behavior and enforce order within their territory for the betterment of the health, safety, morals, and general welfare of their inhabitants. Under the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the powers not specifically delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states or to the people. This law implies that the federal government does not possess all possible powers, because states reserve some powers and the people reserve others. In the environmental and public health contexts, states have exercised their traditional police powers and historical regulation of the environment by regulating the emissions and wastes from facilities located within their geographical boundaries. The goal of these state laws is to protect the environment and population located near these facilities. States are best suited to manage state-specific concerns, whether they are due to geography, climate, or presence of a specific industry, and states can address, on a local level, the issues presented. States are thus sometimes better equipped than the federal government to respond to local concerns and address the environmental issues their citizens face. On the other hand, the Constitution bestows upon Congress the power to regulate commerce among the several states. The scope of this power is the basis for much of the environmental and economic federal legislation enacted by Congress. Because federal environmental laws explicitly regulate or impact industrial and commercial activities, they have a nexus to the regulation of commerce. Furthermore, because many of the media regulated—such as air and water—do not stay confined to one geographic area, it is logical that the pollution issue being addressed be handled in a consistent fashion from state to state, with a centralized response, which the federal government can provide. Without federal preemption, a modernized TSCA would create more uncertainty than it would resolve. Although it is under the jurisdiction of EPA, TSCA is not akin to the traditional environmental statutes discussed earlier, which regulate environmental media (air, water, waste). TSCA regulates the manufacture, processing, distribution, and use of chemicals in products. Because most products are distributed nationally, product regulation may significantly impact interstate commerce. A logical regulation method would be to take a national approach to regulating chemicals in products that are distributed nationwide, or chemicals in commerce. The role of federal preemption in the TSCA context, then, would be to ensure that a product that enters interstate commerce is regulated for safety in the same fashion in all fifty states. This type of regulation is consistent with other product approval and safety laws. The federal government has traditionally regulated how certain nationally marketed new products are approved for commerce and has regulated what is necessary for them to remain in commerce. For example, in the product approval realm, the federal government, through the FDA, retains sole authority to approve pharmaceuticals and medical devices for the market. Regarding safety, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issues safety standards for vehicles, an authority granted by the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966. When that act was being debated, Senator Abraham Ribicoff summed up the need for the legislation: “It is obvious that 50 states cannot individually set standards for automobiles that come into those states from a mass production industry.” (Congressional Record, vol. 112, Part I (June 24, 1966)), p. S14232. Preemption in the TSCA context ensures that products and chemicals are uniformly safe for intended uses across all fifty states. Even within the chemical regulatory context, there is precedent for federal preemption. State labeling and other warning requirements are routinely considered to be preempted by federal requirements, particularly where Congress Published in Natural Resources & Environment Volume 29, Number 4, Spring 2015. © 2015 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association. has found a need for national uniformity or the federal requirement reflects a balance of competing interests. For example, the Proposition 65 point-of-sale warning requirements in California were held to be preempted by U.S. Department of Agriculture labeling requirements under the Federal Meat Inspection Act in American Meat Institute v. Leeman, 180 Cal. App. 4th 728 (2010), and the Proposition 65 warning requirements as applicable to nicotine replacement therapy products were held to be preempted by FDA’s warning requirements in Dowhal v. SmithKline Beecham Consumer Healthcare, 32 Cal. 4th 910 (2004). On a policy basis, labeling and other warning requirements directly impact interstate commerce, as products marketed nationally typically must convey warnings uniformly in all states. Where a state or locality has adopted its own labeling or other warning requirement, the manufacturer or distributor often must meet those requirements for its products nationwide. Different requirements would mean a multiplicity of labels, with added cost and burden, but little added benefit. Federal preemption, therefore, is appropriate. Traditional environmental statutes such as the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act often have a narrower, federal preemption provision. These statutes relate primarily to health or environmental impacts that may be local in nature. The potential variety of locale-specific conditions does not lend itself to a system of standardized regulation. Being that different states and localities may be affected more by a certain form of pollution than the rest of the nation, states need the ability to address those specific issues. Lack of federal preemption would have relatively less impact on interstate commerce, as only localespecific issues are addressed through a diverse set of standards. Furthermore, the regulation concerns how the pollutant in a medium needs to be addressed, not how the underlying chemical enters the commerce stream as a product in the first instance. Accordingly, there is a solid reason for why preemption under most environmental statutes looks different than preemption for a federal chemical approval statute such as TSCA. So Why All the Concern? As mentioned, the scope of preemption in TSCA reform proposals is the subject of great attention and debate. To industry, preemption is important because TSCA regulates goods in commerce. Without federal preemption, a modernized TSCA would create more uncertainty than it would resolve. States would continue to have excessive latitude to create their own programs on top of the expanded EPA role. This ambiguity could impose on business huge transactional costs, complex and costly compliance procedures, and litigation and risk management efforts, resulting in fewer consumer choices and higher prices, and frustrate the distribution of consumer and commercial products. No improvement in chemical or product safety necessarily follows from this burden. Furthermore, the reach of economic activity has expanded significantly since TSCA was enacted in 1976. State laws and regulations that might have made sense when markets were primarily local can now produce conflicts in an age where markets are regional, national, and global. Modern economic realities now demand the use of preemption to ensure one uniform, federal chemical regulatory system in the United States. Even state programs that mirror the federal programs undermine a unified national U.S. market and can hinder nationwide distribution systems for chemicals and products that incorporate TSCA-regulated chemicals and materials. There are already many federal programs that regulate, evaluate, and disseminate information about chemicals. These programs, when working in tandem with a modernized system to evaluate the safety of chemicals in commerce for their intended use, should provide a state with a rather solid basis to fulfill the responsibility to provide a safe environment for its citizens. When local concerns or gaps have arisen, the statutes have allowed for states to act, to address air and water pollution issues, for example. Furthermore, the TSCA modernization proposal put forth by the late Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Senator David Vitter (R-LA), the “Chemical Safety Improvement Act” (CSIA), would allow states to petition EPA to regulate when state-specific concerns must be addressed. Such a petition process has precedent in, among other laws, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. No states take a comprehensive approach similar to programs undertaken pursuant to TSCA in which a chemical undergoes a scientific evaluation to determine its safety prior to entry into commerce. Most chemical-related state laws regulate chemicals in products or specific uses that, on the federal level, are not regulated by EPA under TSCA, but are regulated under other statutes by other agencies such as the FDA or CPSC. Consequently, it is interesting to note they might be preempted by statutes other than TSCA. (These laws are limited in scope and application. Putting aside constitutional issues, this limitation exists because most states do not have the monetary resources and manpower to implement a state TSCA-like program.) It is also difficult to envision why states would need their own assessment programs. Rather, they need the ability to obtain sound and reliable information on chemical safety from EPA so that they can address chemical-related issues that may arise in their state. While TSCA contains, and a modernized TSCA would contain, risk management-related provisions, those portions are but one part of the federal chemical management system. With robust and systematic chemical assessments for high priority chemicals, such as those called for under the Lautenberg-Vitter proposal, states should not need to engage in their own separate chemicalspecific risk management regulation. The other portions of TSCA, namely the steps in the new chemical review process and systematic review of existing chemicals, should not require state-based programs. Under the Lautenberg-Vitter proposal, states continue to have significant authority, preemption notwithstanding. The involvement of state agencies in the regulatory process is encouraged. Specifically, many state-based regulatory authorities would not be impacted if they did not conflict with EPA requirements or regulate manufacturing or use—even once EPA made a determination as to safety. States would be able to continue establishing chemical and product reporting requirements. States would play a pivotal role in helping EPA by providing relevant exposure data, which would enable EPA to identify and prioritize chemicals. The involvement of state agencies throughout the entire process of identifying, assessing, and regulating priority substances would be encouraged. By involving state governments in this manner, the proposed structure would result in a uniform national system of chemical regulation that addresses the needs of the states in their roles as guardians for their citizens, and it would avoid the potential for duplication and conflict between state and federal decisions. Published in Natural Resources & Environment Volume 29, Number 4, Spring 2015. © 2015 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association. By establishing a strong, centralized chemical management system, with federal preemption, EPA will be able to address safety and risk issues from chemical uses nationwide. A myriad of state and local chemical regulatory programs would be unnecessary and preempted, thus eliminating conflicts and inconsistencies in how citizens are protected from the same exposure to chemicals. Resulting impediments to interstate commerce that would otherwise increase the cost of products will be eliminated. However, state and local governments will be able to focus on local, higher priority issues by freeing resources otherwise allocated to duplicative, state chemicals regulations. Preemption exists today under TSCA. Risk management actions, rules, and orders issuing from EPA with respect to a It is difficult to see how a reformed TSCA would truly make a significant impact on the ability of states to take actions deemed necessary for environmental protection. chemical will generally preempt state and local restrictions on that chemical that address the same risk. Under TSCA today, states may apply to EPA for a waiver of preemption. In practice, few states or localities have adopted restrictions for the chemicals EPA has subjected to regulatory actions, and, therefore, few occasions have arisen for this preemption provision to come into play—EPA has almost never been asked for a waiver. Under the Lautenberg-Vitter proposal, all existing state laws will continue to be in force and effect until such time as EPA acts specifically on a chemical and chemical use. Only then would a state regulation be preempted by the federal action. To the extent that the bill contains “strong federal preemption” language, it only extends to how a state can regulate an individual chemical in TSCA-like ways. The specific scope of that preemption will be decided by EPA on a caseby-case, chemical-by-chemical basis. Thus, the preemption of any and all existing state laws and regulations will be decided by EPA and customized by EPA in its safety determination of a specific chemical. Preemption under the Lautenberg-Vitter proposal is by no means sweeping, nor will it impair the ability of any state—in any fashion—to protect its citizens. The Lautenberg-Vitter proposal was drafted to remedy the host of issues EPA has faced in efforts to implement TSCA. TSCA’s provisions were intended to ensure that chemicals that pose an unreasonable risk to health or the environment could be regulated appropriately. Under today’s TSCA, EPA has not been able to meet this goal effectively. Therefore, the proposal would strengthen EPA’s regulatory authority by imposing a more systematic, centralized, and effective evaluation process to assure new chemical products can come to market without questions about safety, and existing chemicals can be determined safe for their intended uses in order to remain on the market. It places the role of central “product regulator” back in the hands of EPA, where it belongs. The preemption provisions reflect this new reality. Yet, the proposal also recognizes the need for states to participate in the process and address states’ needs and concerns. When read as a whole, the proposal properly balances the need to ensure the growth and success of commerce nationally with the need of states to protect their citizens. States have legitimate concerns about protecting the safety and health of their citizens, but the existing federal programs that regulate chemical exposure address many of these concerns and allow states to take necessary actions. It is difficult to see how a reformed TSCA with a strengthened preemption provision, as per the Lautenberg-Vitter proposal, would truly make a significant impact on the ability of states to take actions deemed necessary for environmental protection. States retain the ability to protect their citizens from risks to human health and the environment under a host of other federal statutes and even under the Lautenberg-Vitter proposal. When the discussion of TSCA modernization moves from the political to the practical, perhaps significant advancement of the proposals will occur. Published in Natural Resources & Environment Volume 29, Number 4, Spring 2015. © 2015 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.
© Copyright 2024