Looking Beyond Lead: What We Learned About TSCA and Healthy Housing

by Laura Fudala

When most healthy housing professionals think about the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), they often think about lead-based paint. But during “Why the Toxic Substances Control Act Matters for Healthy Housing,” a recent webinar hosted by the National Safe and Healthy Housing Coalition, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), and Silent Spring Institute, I was reminded that TSCA’s importance extends far beyond lead.

The webinar explored why this federal chemical safety law matters for healthy housing and what is at stake as policymakers debate its future. As someone who spends much of my time focused on housing conditions, health outcomes, and prevention, I came away with a deeper appreciation for how chemicals policy shapes the environments where people live long before a home inspector, public health practitioner, or housing professional ever walks through the door.

Healthy Housing Is About More than the Structure

The healthy housing field has traditionally focused on hazards such as lead, mold, pests, moisture, injury risks, and poor ventilation. These issues remain critically important. But our discussion highlighted another important reality: Healthy homes are influenced not only by the physical condition of a building but also by the chemicals embedded in building materials, furnishings, consumer products, and household supplies.

Many of the products commonly found in homes, from flooring and furniture to cleaning products and children’s toys, contain chemicals that can affect human health. TSCA is the primary federal law that gives EPA the authority to evaluate those chemicals and determine whether they pose unreasonable risks. This perspective is deeply aligned with a core healthy housing principle: Improving one housing condition should not require accepting a different health hazard in its place. Whether addressing pests, controlling lead hazards, or selecting materials for rehabilitation projects, healthy housing practitioners strive to avoid solutions that unintentionally introduce new chemical risks.

In other words, TSCA helps answer a question that is fundamental to healthy housing: Are the products people bring into their homes safe?

In recent years, TSCA has been used to strengthen review of new chemicals before they enter the marketplace and to restrict or ban uses of several hazardous chemicals, including methylene chloride, trichloroethylene (TCE), and perchloroethylene (PCE)—substances that have been used in common consumer products such as paint strippers, cleaning products, and adhesives. EPA’s ongoing work under TSCA is also addressing chemicals that may be familiar to healthy housing professionals, including formaldehyde in carpet, furniture, and construction materials as well as 1,4-dioxane as a contaminant in household cleaners like laundry detergent.

We Can’t “Behavior Change” Our Way Out of Every Exposure

One of the most compelling parts of the webinar came from Silent Spring Institute’s discussion of research showing how widespread chemical exposures are within homes.

As healthy housing practitioners, we often promote actions residents can take to reduce exposure risks. These interventions are—and will remain—important and effective.

But the webinar reinforced that there are limits to what individual behavior can accomplish when potentially harmful chemicals are already present in products and materials throughout the marketplace.

A family cannot reasonably research every ingredient in every cleaning product, building material, piece of furniture, or consumer good they encounter. Nor should they have to.

This is where regulation matters. Strong chemical safety systems help ensure that dangerous substances are identified and addressed before consumers are exposed in the first place. Prevention has always been a core principle of healthy housing, and TSCA represents prevention at a national scale.

Why Current TSCA Discussions Matter to Housing Professionals

The webinar also provided context on current debates surrounding TSCA and concerns about proposals that could make it more difficult for EPA to evaluate and regulate harmful chemicals.

For many in the healthy housing field, chemicals policy may feel removed from day-to-day work. Yet the connection becomes clear when we think about the products and materials we recommend and encounter every day.

Housing professionals regularly make decisions about:

• Flooring and building products
• Paints, adhesives, and coatings
• Cleaning and maintenance supplies
• Furnishings and household items
• Renovation and rehabilitation materials

The standards governing chemical safety can directly influence what ends up in those products and, ultimately, in people’s homes.

If healthy housing is about creating environments that support health, then the policies that determine which chemicals are allowed in those environments deserve our attention.

A Natural Extension of Prevention

One theme resonated throughout the entire conversation: prevention.

The healthy housing movement has always focused on preventing hazards before they cause harm. We advocate for lead hazard control before children are poisoned, moisture control before mold grows, and fall prevention before injuries occur.

Chemicals policy operates from the same philosophy. It seeks to identify and address potential risks before widespread exposure occurs. That connection helped me see TSCA not as a separate environmental policy issue, but as part of the broader prevention framework that guides so much of our work.

A Conversation Worth Continuing

Our goal in hosting this webinar was not to make everyone an expert in TSCA. Rather, it was to introduce healthy housing professionals to an important issue that may not traditionally be part of our field’s conversations. As healthy housing professionals, we know that where people live affects their health. Increasingly, we are also recognizing that the chemicals present in those environments matter just as much.

We hope this conversation encourages healthy housing practitioners, advocates, researchers, and policymakers to continue exploring how chemical safety intersects with housing health and to engage with partners working to better understand these emerging issues. We’ll continue to share information and action opportunities when applicable (action alerts, sign-on letters, et cetera), and please reach out if you’d like to learn more about how to engage.

Additional Resources

NCHH press release: Ten Years After Chemical Safety Law Improvements, Impacted Veterans, Families, and Health Advocates Sound the Alarm on Capitol Hill.

EDF webpage: TSCA: Defending Our Health and Environment.

EDF fact sheet: Get to Know the Risks of Undoing the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

EDF blog on Senate proposal: Here’s How a Harmful Republican Proposal to Weaken the Toxic Substances Control Act Would Make It Harder for EPA to Keep Dangerous Chemicals Out of Our Lives.

EDF blog on House proposal: Toxics for All: The New Proposal Delivering on the Chemical Industry’s Wish List.

 

Sarah Goodwin contributed to this article.

 

Laura Fudala, project manager, joined NCHH in January 2014 as a project coordinator to provide a wide variety of coordination, research, writing, and support functions on multiple NCHH projects. She currently manages a New York State Department of Health contract and an EPA cooperative agreement that together provide coordination, evaluation, technical, training, and/or programmatic support for healthy homes stakeholders such as the New York State Childhood Lead Poisoning Primary Prevention Program and those working to support the launch and growth of large-scale, evidence-based, sustainable asthma home visiting programs.