[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1685 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

<DOC>






118th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 1685

 To direct the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to 
 establish a consortium relating to exposures to toxic substances and 
              identifying chemicals that are safe to use.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                              May 18, 2023

  Mr. Padilla introduced the following bill; which was read twice and 
       referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To direct the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to 
 establish a consortium relating to exposures to toxic substances and 
              identifying chemicals that are safe to use.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Supercomputing for Safer Chemicals 
Act'' or the ``SUPERSAFE Act''.

SEC. 2. SUPERCOMPUTING FOR SAFER CHEMICALS (SUPERSAFE) CONSORTIUM.

    (a) Establishment.--
            (1) In general.--The Administrator of the Environmental 
        Protection Agency (referred to in this section as the 
        ``Administrator''), in consultation with the heads of relevant 
        Federal agencies (including the Secretary of Health and Human 
        Services and the Secretary of Energy), shall form a consortium, 
        to be known as the ``Supercomputing for Safer Chemicals 
        (SUPERSAFE) Consortium'' (referred to in this section as the 
        ``Consortium''). The Consortium shall include the National 
        Laboratories of the Department of Energy, academic and other 
        research institutions, and other entities, as determined by the 
        Administrator, to carry out the activities described in 
        subsection (b).
            (2) Inclusion of state agencies.--The Administrator shall 
        allow the head of a relevant State agency to join the 
        Consortium on request of the State agency.
    (b) Consortium Activities.--
            (1) In general.--The Consortium shall use supercomputing, 
        machine learning, and other similar capabilities--
                    (A) to establish rapid approaches for large-scale 
                identification of toxic substances and the development 
                of safer alternatives to toxic substances by developing 
                and validating computational toxicology methods based 
                on unique high-performance computing, artificial 
                intelligence, machine learning, and precision 
                measurements;
                    (B) to address the need to identify safe chemicals 
                for use in consumer and industrial products and in 
                their manufacture to support the move away from toxic 
                substances and toward safe-by-design alternatives; and
                    (C) to make recommendations on how the information 
                produced can be applied in risk assessments and other 
                characterizations for use by the Environmental 
                Protection Agency and other agencies in regulatory 
                decisions, and by industry in identifying toxic and 
                safer chemicals.
            (2) Models.--In carrying out paragraph (1), the 
        Consortium--
                    (A) shall use supercomputers and other virtual 
                tools to develop, validate, and run models to predict 
                adverse health effects caused by toxic substances and 
                to identify safe chemicals for use in products and 
                manufacturing; and
                    (B) may utilize, as needed, appropriate biological 
                test systems to test and evaluate approaches and 
                improve their predictability and reliability in 
                industrial and regulatory applications.
    (c) Public Results.--The Consortium shall make model predictions, 
along with supporting documentation, available to the public in an 
accessible format.
    (d) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized to be 
appropriated to the Administrator to carry out this section--
            (1) for fiscal year 2023, $20,000,000;
            (2) for fiscal year 2024, $30,000,000; and
            (3) for each of fiscal years 2025 through 2027, 
        $35,000,000.
                                 <all>