The drive for a safer chemicals policy in the United States.

This article analyzes the history, policies and politics of the modern era of safer chemical policy reform in the United States. In the last decade, state laws have modeled a chemical policy framework to phase out unnecessary dangerous chemicals in favor of safer alternatives. These state drivers, along with market campaigns to reduce downstream business use of hazardous chemicals, have weakened the chemical industry's resistance to fixing the broken federal chemical safety system. The obsolete Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA) has failed to protect public health and the environment and has stifled innovation toward greener chemistry. Health advocates with a progressive policy vision tempered by legislative pragmatism have launched a TSCA reform campaign to challenge chemical industry power in a weak Congress. The opportunity and limits to winning meaningful TSCA reform are characterized and marked as a critical milestone on the path to a truly comprehensive safer chemical policy for the United States.