Our toxic chemicals safety law is under attack

September 8, 2025

Many chemicals used in everyday products and found in our air and water are increasingly linked to cancer, infertility, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and other illnesses.

Until 2016, companies in the U.S. didn’t always have to clear a safety review before using a chemical in consumer products, and the Environmental Protection Agency had little power to remove hazardous chemicals already in the marketplace. 

The bipartisan 2016 Lautenberg Act changed all that. It amended the inadequate 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act to better protect our health from untested and toxic chemicals used in everyday products and materials. 

This strengthened TSCA, providing the EPA with stronger tools to evaluate and regulate chemicals before they harm people or the environment. 

Thanks to the Lautenberg Act, many harmful chemicals — including many that cause cancer — have been kept out of our communities, homes and products. And some of the most toxic chemicals like trichloroethylene, methylene chloride and asbestos are now being phased out. 

Today, that progress is at risk, putting your health in danger. 

See which facilities near you are being assessed or regulated under TSCA

What’s at stake with our toxic chemicals safety law? Your health.

The chemicals industry and Trump administration are now working to gut the improved chemical safety law and dismantle safety protections that are essential to preventing companies from flooding our homes and communities with toxic products. 

As a result, Congress is considering ways to weaken the law, including eliminating safety reviews of new chemicals before they enter the market — and the EPA is bringing back problematic policies from the first Trump administration that blocked or reversed progress that could have made chemicals safer. 

Americans didn’t vote for dirty air, contaminated water, unsafe products and polluted communities. So EDF is defending the Lautenberg Act using our legal, policy and scientific expertise to challenge actions and decisions in Congressional debate and in court, to keep us all safer from toxic chemicals.