Determining unreasonable risk under the Toxic Substances Control Act

The way in which the term unreasonable risk in the Toxic Substances Control Act should be defined is discussed. The definition was written to assist the Environmental Protection Agency in establishing a rational and feasible process for determining which chemicals pose an unreasonable risk to human health and to the environment. Although focusing on the toxics act, many of the findings and conclusions are relevant to other efforts to regulate threats to health and safety. Topics covered include: the Need for Trade-Offs; Priority-Setting; Predictability of Targets; Stages of Analysis; Costs and Benefits of Quantification; Use of Categories; Availability and Validity of Information; Consolidation of Factors for the Decision Maker; Treatment of Available Substitutes: Quantification of Factors; Weighing Costs and Benefits; Distributive Questions; and Openness and Access.