Washington, D.C. – Environmental Working Group issued the following statement ahead of expected passage today by the House on H.R.3576, the TSCA Modernization Act of 2016.

EWG President Ken Cook:

Passage of the first legislation to regulate toxic industrial chemicals in 40 years ought to be cause for celebration, and it is—for the companies that make those toxic chemicals.

As for the rest of us, we should be mad as hell.

Despite the best efforts of many lawmakers to redeem legislation that originated in the c-suites of the chemical industry, on balance the law Congress will send to the president’s desk continues to place chemical company interests above the public interest.

The public deserves a law strong enough to curb the abuses of an industry that clearly cannot be trusted. The toxic products of America’s chemical companies show up by the hundreds in the bodies of the American people, including babies still in the womb. Thousands of cities, school systems and water utilities nationwide are forced to clean up, or live with, water, air and toxic buildings rendered unsafe by the chemical industry’s hazardous products.

This is an industry that routinely poisons its own workers and the very communities in which it operates, and just as routinely lies about it.

EWG fears this law will do too little to protect us from chemicals that cause cancer and nervous system disorders, impaired fertility, immune system dysfunction and a host of other problems.

Chemical companies have long ago lost the confidence of the American people, and this law will only fuel that mistrust. Because this law will not strongly and urgently address the problem of toxic chemical exposure, increasingly consumers will act to protect themselves. They will continue to reject products that contain unsafe chemicals; and manufacturers and retailers that listen to consumers will reformulate or reject those products.

Indeed, more unsafe chemicals may be “regulated by retail” in the years ahead, and regulated faster and more stringently, than will be regulated by this legislation.

Instead of raising confidence about the safety of chemicals and the products that contain them, this law will raise doubts—an outcome no one should be celebrating.