On July 1, 2016, Inside EPA published “Committee Jurisdiction Issues Blocked Green Chemistry From TSCA Reform,” an article discussing the passage of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) law and the lack of language from previous versions boosting federal support of green chemistry. The majority of the bill was reviewed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, but the green chemistry provision would have needed to be reviewed by the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, further complicating the fragile House and Senate negotiations. Inside EPA’s source stated: “Nobody wanted to step on anybody’s toes. […] Pretty much everything else [was] in [Energy and Commerce’s] jurisdiction or was sufficiently small enough [to not raise concerns.] There were a lot of concessions on all sides.” The green chemistry provision was originally added to the Senate version of the TSCA Reform, the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (S. 697), by Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), and was primarily focused on funding the research and development of green chemistry.
The green chemistry provision of S. 697 called for a study of how to best incentivize sustainable chemistry research and development, as well as support “economic, legal and other appropriate social science research to identify barriers to commercialization and methods to advance commercialization of sustainable chemistry.” The bill also created a working group to coordinate federal sustainable chemistry activities that would be lead by EPA’s research chief and the National Science Foundation (NSF) director, as well as an advisory council to coordinate with the working group. Although green chemistry language in S. 697 did not remain in the final version of the bill, there are still supporters in Congress who are prepared to work to get the programs outlined in S. 697 into law.