I
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 123
To direct that certain assessments with respect to toxicity of chemicals be
carried out by the program offices of the Environmental Protection
Agency, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JANUARY3, 2025
Mr. B
IGGSof Arizona introduced the following bill; which was referred to the
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, and in addition to the
Committee on Energy and Commerce, for a period to be subsequently de-
termined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions
as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
A BILL
To direct that certain assessments with respect to toxicity
of chemicals be carried out by the program offices of
the Environmental Protection Agency, and for other pur-
poses.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Improving Science in 4
Chemical Assessments Act’’. 5
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SEC. 2. RESEARCH NEEDS AND PRIORITIES OF EPA PRO-1
GRAM OFFICES. 2
The Environmental Research, Development, and 3
Demonstration Authorization Act of 1978 is amended by 4
striking section 7 (42 U.S.C. 4364) and inserting the fol-5
lowing new sections: 6
‘‘SEC. 7. RESEARCH NEEDS AND PRIORITIES OF EPA PRO-7
GRAM OFFICES. 8
‘‘(a) I
NGENERAL.—The Administrator of the Envi-9
ronmental Protection Agency shall assure that the expend-10
iture of any funds appropriated pursuant to this Act or 11
any other provision of law for environmental research and 12
development related to regulatory program activities shall 13
be coordinated with and reflect the research needs and pri-14
orities of the relevant program offices, as well as the over-15
all research needs and priorities of the Agency, including 16
those defined in the five-year research plan. 17
‘‘(b) H
AZARDIDENTIFICATION ANDDOSE-RESPONSE 18
A
SSESSMENTS.—Beginning on the date of the enactment 19
of the Improving Science in Chemical Assessments Act, 20
any covered assessments carried out with respect to a 21
chemical substance through the Integrated Risk Informa-22
tion System program of the Environmental Protection 23
Agency as of the day before such date of enactment shall, 24
in lieu of being carried out through such program, be car-25
ried out by the relevant program office of the Environ-26
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•HR 123 IH
mental Protection Agency, so long as the relevant program 1
office determines there is a need for such an assessment. 2
Such an assessment shall be carried out using the sci-3
entific standards specified in section 7B and be based on 4
the weight of the scientific evidence. 5
‘‘(c) T
OXICITYVALUES.—In carrying out a covered 6
assessment with respect to a chemical substance under 7
subsection (b), the relevant program office shall assign a 8
toxicity value or values, when scientifically supported by 9
the available data, for such chemical substance. With re-10
spect to that assignment, the following shall apply: 11
‘‘(1) When supported by the available data, the 12
toxicity value or values shall include a range of point 13
estimates of risk, as well as sources and magnitudes 14
of uncertainty associated with the estimates. 15
‘‘(2) When multiple point estimates can be de-16
veloped, the relevant program office shall— 17
‘‘(A) consider all datasets; and 18
‘‘(B) make a determination about how best 19
to represent the human health risk posed by the 20
chemical substance involved. 21
‘‘(d) C
HEMICALASSESSMENTDATABASE.— 22
‘‘(1) I
N GENERAL.—A toxicity value or values 23
assigned to a chemical substance under subsection 24
(c) shall be included in a chemical assessment data-25
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•HR 123 IH
base to be maintained by the Office of Research and 1
Development of the Environmental Protection Agen-2
cy. 3
‘‘(2) C
OMPLETED ASSESSMENTS .—All covered 4
assessments stored, as of the date of the enactment 5
of this Act, in the IRIS database of the Environ-6
mental Protection Agency shall be retained in the 7
chemical assessment database established pursuant 8
to paragraph (1). 9
‘‘(3) U
PDATES.—Such database shall be up-10
dated pursuant to a covered assessment performed 11
by a relevant program office, including to make a 12
change in the existing toxicity value or values for a 13
chemical substance included in such database. 14
‘‘(e) C
ERTIFICATION.—Beginning 2 years after the 15
date of the enactment of the Improving Science in Chem-16
ical Assessments Act and every 2 years thereafter, the Of-17
fice of Research and Development of the Environmental 18
Protection Agency shall submit to the Committee on 19
Science, Space, and Technology and the Committee on 20
Energy and Commerce of the House of Representatives 21
and the Committee on Environment and Public Works of 22
the Senate a report containing a certification that each 23
covered assessment completed during the period covered 24
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by the report was conducted using the scientific standards 1
specified in section 7B. 2
‘‘(f) D
EFINITIONS.—In this section, section 7A, and 3
section 7B: 4
‘‘(1) C
OVERED ASSESSMENT .—The term ‘cov-5
ered assessment’ means, with respect to the evalua-6
tion of the human health effects resulting from 7
chronic exposure to a chemical substance, a chemical 8
hazard identification and dose-response assessment 9
(as such terms are defined by the Environmental 10
Protection Agency on the day before the date of the 11
enactment of this section). 12
‘‘(2) R
ELEVANT PROGRAM OFFICE .—The term 13
‘relevant program office’ includes the following of-14
fices of the Environmental Protection Agency: 15
‘‘(A) The Office of Water. 16
‘‘(B) The Office of Air and Radiation. 17
‘‘(C) The Office of Land and Emergency 18
Management. 19
‘‘(D) The Office of Chemical Safety and 20
Pollution Prevention. 21
‘‘(E) Any successor to an office specified in 22
subparagraphs (A) through (D) and any other 23
office determined to be relevant by the Adminis-24
trator of the Environmental Protection Agency. 25
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‘‘SEC. 7A. HAZARD IDENTIFICATION AND DOSE-RESPONSE 1
STEERING COMMITTEE. 2
‘‘(a) E
STABLISHMENT.—Not later than 30 days after 3
the date of the enactment of the Improving Science in 4
Chemical Assessments Act, the Administrator of the Envi-5
ronmental Protection Agency shall establish a chemical 6
hazard identification and dose-response steering com-7
mittee (referred to in this section as the ‘steering com-8
mittee’) to coordinate the conduct of covered assessments 9
by relevant program offices for purposes of ensuring that, 10
with respect to such assessments, there is no duplication 11
of effort by such offices. 12
‘‘(b) D
UTY.—The duties of the steering committee 13
are the following: 14
‘‘(1) If the steering committee learns that more 15
than one relevant program office intends to conduct 16
covered assessments with respect to the same chem-17
ical substance, the steering committee shall deter-18
mine the most effective means of carrying out a sin-19
gle covered assessment to prevent duplication of ef-20
fort by such offices. 21
‘‘(2) For purposes of supplementing a covered 22
assessment, the steering committee shall consider 23
any third-party assessment of a chemical substance 24
generated by another Federal, State, or inter-25
national agency or agencies or members of the sci-26
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entific community that meets the requirements spec-1
ified in subsection (e). 2
‘‘(c) C
HAIR; COMPOSITION.— 3
‘‘(1) C
HAIR.—The steering committee shall be 4
chaired by the Assistant Administrator of the Office 5
of Research and Development of the Environmental 6
Protection Agency. 7
‘‘(2) C
OMPOSITION.—The steering committee 8
shall be composed of 15 members, all of whom shall 9
be active, full-time employees of the Environmental 10
Protection Agency, with at least one member rep-11
resenting each relevant program office and each re-12
gional office of the Environmental Protection Agen-13
cy. The members of the steering committee shall be 14
appointed by the Administrator of the Environ-15
mental Protection Agency. Any vacancy shall be 16
filled in the same manner as the initial appointment. 17
‘‘(d) M
EETINGS.—The steering committee shall meet 18
at least once each calendar year. 19
‘‘(e) T
HIRD-PARTYASSESSMENTREQUIREMENTS.— 20
The requirements specified in this subsection with respect 21
to a third-party assessment of a chemical substance are 22
that the assessment— 23
‘‘(1) is conducted using scientific standards 24
specified in section 7B; 25
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‘‘(2) has undergone independent scientific re-1
view for transparency, completeness, and quality; 2
and 3
‘‘(3) reflects the best available science and the 4
weight of the available scientific evidence. 5
‘‘SEC. 7B. SCIENTIFIC STANDARDS. 6
‘‘Covered assessments carried out under section 7 7
and discussion of such assessments and review of third- 8
party assessments carried out under section 7A shall be 9
conducted using scientific information, technical proce-10
dures, measures, methods, protocols, methodologies, or 11
models in a manner consistent with the best available 12
science. In carrying out such an assessment, the relevant 13
program office shall integrate all lines of scientific evi-14
dence and consider, as applicable, the following: 15
‘‘(1) The extent to which the scientific informa-16
tion, technical procedures, measures, methods, proto-17
cols, methodologies, or models employed to generate 18
the scientific information are reasonable for and con-19
sistent with the intended use of the scientific infor-20
mation. 21
‘‘(2) The extent to which the scientific informa-22
tion is relevant for the relevant program office’s use 23
in making a decision regarding a chemical sub-24
stance. 25
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‘‘(3) The degree of clarity and completeness 1
with which the data, assumptions, methods, quality 2
assurance, and analyses employed to generate the 3
scientific information are documented and publicly 4
available in a manner that honors legal and ethical 5
obligations to reduce the risks of unauthorized dis-6
closure and re-identification. 7
‘‘(4) The extent to which the variability and un-8
certainty in the scientific information, or in the pro-9
cedures, measures, methods, protocols, methodolo-10
gies, or models, are evaluated and characterized. 11
‘‘(5) The extent of independent verification or 12
peer review of the scientific information or of the 13
procedures, measures, methods, protocols, meth-14
odologies, or models. 15
‘‘(6) The ability of the scientific findings and 16
research to be replicated or reproduced. 17
‘‘(7) The extent to which the available scientific 18
information supports dose-response modeling, using 19
non-linear approaches.’’. 20
Æ
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