With Democrats in control of Congress come January, the chemical industry can expect more partisan rancor but few, if any, changes to existing regulations during President Trump’s last two years in office, said Lynn Bergeson, managing partner of Bergeson & Campbell and Chemical Processing regulatory editor.

“Congressional oversight is unlikely to change the bottom line, especially if rollbacks relate to EPA’s changes to comply with East Fork,” said Bergeson, referring to a federal appeals court ruling in September that overturned EPA’s methylene chloride ban.

Still, new efforts by the Trump administration to loosen regulations are more likely to fail unless they’re backed by the best available science and clear reliance on the law, Bergeson added.

“EPA will have to hew closely to TSCA scientific and legal standards to protect its actions from legal challenges from all sides," Bergeson said. This includes the Make America Healthy Again wing of the Republican party, she said.

At the state level, chemical processing companies can expect more regulations from Democratic-led states, including PFAS reporting and restriction programs, extended producer responsibility requirements and climate-change initiatives.

Regarding the TSCA fees, there appears to be growing bipartisan support to extend fee authorization in 2026, according to Bergeson. Congress already extended EPA’s TSCA fee authority through Dec. 11 in a stopgap funding bill signed Sept. 2.

But legislators are still wrangling over how long the reauthorization should last. Some have suggested five years, while others prefer 10, Bergeson said.

The election results will have less of an impact on TSCA than the Fifth Circuit’s methylene chloride decision, Bergeson said. The court’s ruling is believed to foreshadow more widespread changes to the TSCA risk-evaluation process, Bergeson said.

Tariffs, Trade and Rail Impact

Import tariffs imposed by the Trump administration have hit foreign companies harder than U.S.-based producers, though new Section 301 duties cover more plastics and chemicals than previous rounds did, noted industry intelligence firm ICIS. Tariffs will likely continue, even with the Democrats controlling both chambers, according to ICIS. Trade is one of the few areas where the president can act without lawmakers, most likely through the ongoing Section 301 "excess capacity" investigations into 16 trading partners, including the EU and China, said Marcos Carias, an economist with trade credit risk management firm Coface.

“The main thing that would invalidate that thesis would be if the president, facing tangible evidence of how unpopular his policies are, decided to voluntarily walk away from further tariff use in the second half of his mandate,” Carias said. “My sense is that this would be uncharacteristic of him.”

Meanwhile, a trade truce with China is set to expire on Jan. 10, but the two countries still have many significant issues to resolve, Carias noted. And the EU-US trade deal agreed upon in 2025 could unravel due to recurring tensions spurred by the Trump administration, he added.

Tariffs can increase costs for chemical inputs, including materials with limited domestic alternatives, said Douglas Leigh, vice president of legislative affairs for the Alliance for Chemical Distribution (ACD), following the midterm election. Leigh called for clear implementation guidance, reasonable transition periods and targeted relief for unavailable inputs.

What happens on the military front may matter just as much as tariffs on the trade front, Carias said.

“Congress has a little bit more power here to check the president, mainly through the power of the purse, but the Oval Office retains much discretion for military operations,” Carias said. “It’s likely that here, too, the looming midterm deadline was constraining some of the president’s risk-taking, and now we have to keep a close eye on how his strategies on Iran and Ukraine evolve.”

ACD is hoping for action on the Railway Safety Act and greater freight rail competition, Leigh said. The industry group has spoken out against the proposed Union Pacific/Norfolk Southern merger. The turnover in Congress means the industry will need to educate lawmakers on the role that chemical distribution plays in the nation’s economy, Leigh said.

“The election will shape the policy agenda, but businesses will ultimately judge the results by whether they can source materials, deliver reliably and plan investments with confidence,” he said.

American Chemistry Council did not respond to a request for comment on the midterms in time for publication.