The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was instructed under "The Toxic Substances Control Act" (TSCA) to take appropriate actions to ensure that new and existing chemicals do not "present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment." It is intended that manufacturers and importers assume responsibility for providing data on the health anad environmental effects of chemical substances and that the Administrator of the EPA have adequate authority to regulate those chemicals. TSCA is also intended to fill the gaps among the previously enacted environmental statutes.
The 1985 TSCA Chemical Substance Inventory contained over 63,000 chemical substances manufactured since 1975. The 1990 supplement contained an additional 5,000 materials, TSCA has been codified in Title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).
TSCA regulates all chemical substances and any isolated chemical intermediates used in their preparation with the following exceptions as noted in TSCA Section 3: