There are tens of thousands of chemicals in use in the United States. The Environmental Protection Agency can't say for sure if many of them are safe and routinely takes years to assess the risks of ones in common use.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson called Tuesday for an overhaul of how the nation manages and assesses chemicals risks.

She branded existing laws -- regulated under the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act -- as too slow, weak and tangled in red tape to address public anxiety about toxic threats in everyday items, from phthalates in plastic baby bottles to lead in toys.

``Not only has [the act] fallen behind the industry it is supposed to regulate, it has proven inadequate to assess the risks the public may face,'' she said.

Two key proposals could face industry resistance.

Jackson said manufacturers should be responsible for providing data showing chemicals are safe, rather than waiting for the EPA to determine they're dangerous.

She also called for industry to pick up more of the bill for assessing environmental and health risks.

The EPA's oversight of the chemical industry has been questioned for years.

In March 2008, the General Accounting Office issued a scathing report saying the EPA lacked ``adequate scientific information on the toxicity of many chemicals'' and was backlogged and sluggish in assessing commercial chemicals.

The EPA, the report found, completed only nine chemical risk assessments in three years and much of its information on 540 high-use chemicals was at risk of being obsolete.

As lax as the EPA has been on regulating chemicals, activists said the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has been even softer.

``It's a huge problem and Florida is even more behind than the EPA,'' said Linda Young, director of the Clean Water Network of Florida.

In June, arguing that Florida had ignored EPA standards for years, the group petitioned federal regulators to expand water quality and fish consumption standards for 54 potentially toxic chemicals.

DEP spokeswoman Dee Ann Miller said the 54 chemicals had not been found in Florida waters but the DEP planned to propose standards in the future ``in an abundance of caution.''

The DEP had been poised to do that last year, she said, but put it off because the EPA, as the result of a separate environmental lawsuit, also has demanded new nutrient pollution standards.

Jackson, in a conference call, outlined ``core principles'' intended to help shape expected new legislation. In hearings in June, Congress criticized EPA oversight.

While she also called for broader EPA review of chemicals, she didn't embrace the sweeping overhaul adopted by the European Union in 2007.

It will eventually require manufacturers to submit comprehensive toxic assessments, including for some 2,000 chemicals long in use.

Dan Newton, government relations manager for the Society of Chemical Manufacturers & Affiliates, said the industry agreed the system needed strengthening but called the EPA proposals too sketchy to assess.

He did applaud Jackson for ``resisting attempts by industry critics to adopt the monolithic European approach.''