The letter highlighted the most important provisions of the legislation, including:

• Use of a health-based standard to assess chemical safety and explicitly require protection of the most vulnerable populations, including children, workers, minority communities and low-income groups;
• Prohibition against the introduction of new chemicals without a finding that the substance meets the applicable safety standard and is not a known or suspected reproductive, developmental, neurological, or immunological toxicant, carcinogen, mutagen, or endocrine disruptor;
• Directing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to prioritize those chemicals of particular hazard to the public for immediate risk management;
• Requiring chemical manufacturers to bear the burden of proving that chemical substances meet applicable safety standards;
• Ensuring that workers, communities, and the public have a right to know information regarding their chemical exposure;
• Requiring federal agency coordination to avoid overlapping responsibilities for protecting Americans’ occupational and environmental health;
• Providing federal support for basic and applied research, and incentives for the production of safer alternatives to hazardous substances currently in use.

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