Environmental justice communities are especially disadvantaged when it comes to direct community intervention in matters critical to their well-being. Opportunities may exist, however, to institutionalize resources for those communities’ benefit. In particular, environmental enforcement actions could prove a reliable and effective conduit to access resources and obtain environmental and public health benefits, tailored to communities’ self-identified needs.

Editors' Summary: TSCA provides EPA with broad authority to address potential hazards posed by the manufacture, processing, distribution in commerce, use, and disposal of chemical substances and mixtures. In this first of a three-part series, the authors begin a detailed examination of the statute and regulatory program. They review the origins, objectives, and key components of TSCA, and then analyze TSCA's scope -- focusing particularly on definitional issues and exclusions.