Ignorance about chemical risks has been a signature feature of U.S. chemical regulation for nearly half a century. One of the primary reasons for this comes from our regulatory design, which fails to place responsibility on chemical manufacturers to understand and clearly communicate the risks of their chemical products. Instead, this burden is placed on time- and resource-strapped regulators and consumers. To make matters worse, manufacturers face substantial tort liabilities that further discourage them from rigorously assessing the risks of their chemical products, particularly if those assessments have a chance of revealing potential harms. The chapter closes with proposals for reform.

Consumer protection law is notoriously imbalanced with respect to the superior ability of sellers to process information as compared to their customers. Yet despite the resulting comprehension asymmetries, the design of consumer contract law and disclosure requirements regularly fail to encourage sellers to communicate meaningfully with the target audience. This chapter explores how consumer protection law tacitly encourages incomprehensibility and proposes reforms which would provide increased incentives for meaningful communication between buyers and sellers.