[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 84 (Thursday, May 18, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Page S1749]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. PADILLA:
  S. 1685. 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; to the 
Committee on Environment and Public Works.
  Mr. PADILLA. Madam President, I rise to introduce the Supercomputing 
for Safer Chemicals Act or the SUPERSAFE Act. Through the use of 
supercomputing and artificial intelligence, we have an opportunity to 
transform our scientific understanding of the detrimental effects 
associated with certain industrial chemical uses and to shift American 
commerce towards safer and more sustainable products and manufacturing.
  The legislation would establish a SUPERSAFE Consortium to be led by 
the Environmental Protection Agency in consultation with the heads of 
relevant Federal Agencies, the National Labs, academic and other 
research institutions, State agencies, and other entities as determined 
by the EPA. The purpose of the SUPERSAFE Consortium is to identify 
exposures to toxic substance and chemicals that are safer to use in 
commerce.
  Specifically, the SUPERSAFE Consortium established by this bill would 
use supercomputing, machine learning, and other similar capabilities 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; 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 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.
  Importantly, establishing a SUPERSAFE Consortium would encourage 
interagency collaboration and leverage the best scientific ideas 
through inclusion of State agencies and public and academic research 
institutions.
  Currently, tens of thousands of untested chemicals can be used in 
commercial products, resulting in consumer, community, and worker 
exposures to potentially toxic chemicals. Too often, there is 
insufficient scientific data for evaluating health effects or 
identifying safer chemicals, and existing approaches to generating this 
data are slow, costly, and rely on animal testing.
  We are well poised to address this problem and discover safer 
chemicals by establishing a SUPERSAFE Consortium to use supercomputing, 
machine learning, and other similar capabilities. These technologies 
can be developed and applied to rapidly provide information to evaluate 
chemical safety to identify safe chemicals that avoid the chronic 
diseases and environmental harm caused by toxic chemicals.
  Unfortunately, too many Americans are exposed to toxic chemicals such 
as PFAS and lead. Congress has stepped up and provided billions to 
remediate toxic exposures, including via the bipartisan infrastructure 
law, to address PFAS and lead pollution. Establishing a SUPERSAFE 
Consortium in Federal law could help avoid the widespread pollution 
that our communities face so we can address potential pollution 
challenges before they become widespread.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues to enact this bill as 
quickly as possible.
                                 ______