This week I sat down with Congressman John M. Shimkus, a Member of the United States House of Representatives for the 15th District of Illinois.  As listeners of the podcast know well, Congressman Shimkus is a senior Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.  In this capacity, Congressman Shimkus has become a rock star in the industrial chemical community, given his tireless efforts to modernize the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) , which of course resulted in passage four years ago of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (Lautenberg).

Given Congressman Shimkus’s extensive involvement in and personal commitment to reforming TSCA, our conversation focused on the efforts that have been under way since June 2016 to implement the massive and complicated new law.  We address many aspects of Lautenberg’s implementation, not just by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but also efforts under way by other industrial chemical stakeholders, including industry, non-government organizations (NGOs), states, and the courts.  We discuss the many, many rulemakings EPA has issued since 2016 and survey the next leg of EPA’s journey to implement the new law over the next 12 to 24 months, which will be extremely busy.  Congressman Shimkus is as passionate today as he was four years ago about chemical safety, as you will hear in this recording.

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