All Things Chemical

The bipartisan 2016 Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (Lautenberg) Amendments enacted extensive changes to the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that many hoped would set the law on a new course, address its widely recognized challenges, and accelerate U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) actions to address public health threats. Since then, four administrations have put their mark on implementation of the amended law. The past ten years have seemed like a roller coaster of competing legal interpretations of some of the Lautenberg Amendments' most significant provisions, scientific debate and analyses, rulemakings, delays in meeting TSCA deadlines, and major milestones. To celebrate Lautenberg's ten-year anniversary, the Environmental Law Institute, the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, and B&C convened an all-day conference: TSCA Reform -- Ten Years Later. The podcast you are about to hear is the panel discussion on whether -- and, if so, how -- TSCA should be amended. TSCA's fee authorization lapses in about ten weeks and the need for congressional action has invited animated debate over whether broader legislative action is warranted. Discussion drafts outlining legislative reforms are circulating, and stakeholders are sharply divided over whether legislative intervention is needed at all, let alone on how best to modify TSCA yet again. This panel explored these issues. ALL MATERIALS IN THIS PODCAST ARE PROVIDED SOLELY FOR INFORMATIONAL  AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES. THE MATERIALS ARE NOT INTENDED TO CONSTITUTE LEGAL ADVICE OR THE PROVISION OF LEGAL SERVICES. ALL LEGAL QUESTIONS SHOULD BE ANSWERED DIRECTLY BY A LICENSED ATTORNEY PRACTICING IN THE APPLICABLE AREA OF LAW. ©2026 Bergeson & Campbell, P.C.  All Rights Reserved

The bipartisan 2016 Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (Lautenberg) Amendments enacted extensive changes to the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that many hoped would set the law on a new course, address its widely recognized challenges, and accelerate U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) actions to address public health threats. Since then, four administrations have put their mark on implementation of the amended law. The past ten years have seemed like a roller coaster of competing legal interpretations of some of the Lautenberg Amendments' most significant provisions, scientific debate and analyses, rulemakings, delays in meeting TSCA deadlines, and major milestones. To celebrate Lautenberg's ten-year anniversary, the Environmental Law Institute, the George Washington Milken Institute School of Public Health, and B&C convened an all-day conference: TSCA Reform -- Ten Years Later. The podcast you are about to hear is the panel discussion on ten years of Lautenberg: where are we? Unsurprisingly, views vary widely on whether we are on the right track in achieving Congress's goals, whether amending TSCA was successful, whether EPA's efforts over the past decade are achieving the law's public health goals, and whether, as we look back ten years, we need to reimagine our core approach to chemical regulation or stay the course. This discussion includes diverse stakeholders steeped in TSCA debating these questions. ALL MATERIALS IN THIS PODCAST ARE PROVIDED SOLELY FOR INFORMATIONAL  AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES. THE MATERIALS ARE NOT INTENDED TO CONSTITUTE LEGAL ADVICE OR THE PROVISION OF LEGAL SERVICES. ALL LEGAL QUESTIONS SHOULD BE ANSWERED DIRECTLY BY A LICENSED ATTORNEY PRACTICING IN THE APPLICABLE AREA OF LAW. ©2026 Bergeson & Campbell, P.C.  All Rights Reserved

The bipartisan 2016 Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (Lautenberg) Amendments enacted extensive changes to the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that many hoped would set the law on a new course, address its widely recognized challenges, and accelerate U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) actions to address public health threats. Since then, four administrations have put their mark on implementation of the amended law. The past ten years have seemed like a roller coaster of competing legal interpretations of some of the Lautenberg Amendments' most significant provisions, scientific debate and analyses, rulemakings, delays in meeting TSCA deadlines, and major milestones. To celebrate Lautenberg's ten-year anniversary, the Environmental Law Institute, the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, and B&C convened an all-day conference: TSCA Reform -- Ten Years Later. The podcast you are about to hear is the keynote address from the conference. It features Dr. Lynn R. Goldman, former Assistant Administrator for Toxic Substances at EPA and Dean Emerita at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, speaking with former Senator Tom Udall, a key advocate of Lautenberg, and Bonnie Lautenberg, the spouse of former Senator Frank R. Lautenberg. Many credit Lautenberg's passage in no small part to Bonnie's extraordinary advocacy. ALL MATERIALS IN THIS PODCAST ARE PROVIDED SOLELY FOR INFORMATIONAL  AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES. THE MATERIALS ARE NOT INTENDED TO CONSTITUTE LEGAL ADVICE OR THE PROVISION OF LEGAL SERVICES. ALL LEGAL QUESTIONS SHOULD BE ANSWERED DIRECTLY BY A LICENSED ATTORNEY PRACTICING IN THE APPLICABLE AREA OF LAW. ©2026 Bergeson & Campbell, P.C.  All Rights Reserved

This week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Karen R. Harned, Director of Litigation and Legal Policy for the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW), to discuss the hot off the press decision in National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors v. Feldon, the federal challenge to Oregon's Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) law. We discuss NAW's mission, the role of NAW's Legal Policy Center, which Karen, as Director of Litigation and Legal Policy, leads, the reasons NAW sued the state of Oregon, and what Judge Michael H. Simon determined in his ruling of August 27, 2026. ALL MATERIALS IN THIS PODCAST ARE PROVIDED SOLELY FOR INFORMATIONAL  AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES. THE MATERIALS ARE NOT INTENDED TO CONSTITUTE LEGAL ADVICE OR THE PROVISION OF LEGAL SERVICES. ALL LEGAL QUESTIONS SHOULD BE ANSWERED DIRECTLY BY A LICENSED ATTORNEY PRACTICING IN THE APPLICABLE AREA OF LAW. ©2026 Bergeson & Campbell, P.C.  All Rights Reserved

The bipartisan 2016 Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (Lautenberg) Amendments enacted extensive changes to the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that many hoped would set the law on a new course, address its widely recognized challenges, and accelerate U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) actions to address public health threats. Since then, four administrations have put their mark on implementation of the amended law. The past ten years have seemed like a roller coaster of competing legal interpretations of some of the Lautenberg Amendments' most significant provisions, scientific debate and analyses, rulemakings, delays in meeting TSCA deadlines, and major milestones. To celebrate Lautenberg's ten-year anniversary, the Environmental Law Institute, the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, and B&C convened an all-day conference: TSCA Reform -- Ten Years Later. The podcast you are about to hear is the panel discussion on new chemical review. Questions over EPA's implementation of the Lautenberg Amendments to TSCA Section 5 new chemical review rose quickly and have not abated. Spirited debate continues over how well the program is working, what challenges persist, and what changes may be needed to improve and hasten new chemical review. Environmental advocates have questioned whether the program is doing enough to ensure that new chemicals are safe. This panel discussion explores the reasons underlying the debate over the long-term impacts of decisions on new chemicals, if there is a need to "fix" the program and what that would mean, how "reasonably foreseen" future conditions of use are identified and addressed in the new chemical review process, the impacts of significant new use rules, and the role pre-manufacture review of new chemicals plays in protecting public health and effects on innovation and safer chemicals, among other key issues. ALL MATERIALS IN THIS PODCAST ARE PROVIDED SOLELY FOR INFORMATIONAL  AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES. THE MATERIALS ARE NOT INTENDED TO CONSTITUTE LEGAL ADVICE OR THE PROVISION OF LEGAL SERVICES. ALL LEGAL QUESTIONS SHOULD BE ANSWERED DIRECTLY BY A LICENSED ATTORNEY PRACTICING IN THE APPLICABLE AREA OF LAW. ©2026 Bergeson & Campbell, P.C.  All Rights Reserved