Specialty Chemicals Data Provider: Prices, Regulations, Production and Molecular Reference · Head-to-head
EPA TSCA Chemical Substance Inventory vs US Economic Census — Chemical Manufacturing (NAICS 325)
Which specialty chemicals data provider: prices, regulations, production and molecular reference data fits your job: EPA TSCA Chemical Substance Inventory, or US Economic Census — Chemical Manufacturing. API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
EPA TSCA Chemical Substance Inventory
US Economic Census — Chemical Manufacturing (NAICS 325)
Where the fields line up
No shared field names. These two answer different questions.
| Field | EPA TSCA Chemical Substance Inventory | US Economic Census — Chemical Manufacturing |
|---|---|---|
ID | documented | not in this set |
CASRN | documented | not in this set |
casregno | documented | not in this set |
UID | documented | not in this set |
EXP | documented | not in this set |
ChemName | documented | not in this set |
DEF | documented | not in this set |
UVCB | documented | not in this set |
FLAG | documented | not in this set |
ACTIVITY | documented | not in this set |
GEO_LABEL | not in this set | documented |
NAICS2022 | not in this set | documented |
Coverage, side by side
| EPA TSCA Chemical Substance Inventory | US Economic Census — Chemical Manufacturing | |
|---|---|---|
| Geographic | None carried — one national substance universe, imports included | `GEO_LABEL` — United States, states, metro and micropolitan areas, counties |
What each contains
Pick by fit, not by loyalty.
| EPA TSCA Chemical Substance Inventory | US Economic Census — Chemical Manufacturing | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary identifier | `CASRN` — CAS Registry Number with dashes (`50-00-0`), plus `casregno` without them | `NAICS2022` — 2022 industry code, sector through six digits (`325`, `325110`) |
| Human-readable label | `ChemName` — preferred CA Index Name (`Formaldehyde`), sharpened by the `DEF` definition text | `NAICS2022_LABEL` (`Petrochemical manufacturing`) beside `GEO_LABEL` for the area |
| Composition qualifier | `UVCB` — flags unknown or variable composition, complex reaction products, biological materials | None carried — industry definitions are fixed |
| Flag column | `FLAG` — stacked regulatory codes (section 5 orders, 12C export prohibitions, PE1-PE3, SNUR-related codes) | Companion `_F` flags marking disclosure-suppressed cells |
| Lifecycle status | `ACTIVITY` — ACTIVE (36,522) or INACTIVE (34,252) in US commerce | None carried — the census measures structure, not commercial standing |
| Money, jobs and inputs | None carried — no volumes, values, companies or employment | `ESTAB`, `RCPTOT`, `EMP`, `PAYANN`, `PAYQTR1`, `FIRM`, `VALADD`, `CSTMTOT`, `INVTOTB` |
| Geography | None carried — one national substance universe, imports included | `GEO_LABEL` — United States, states, metro and micropolitan areas, counties |
Where they're equivalent
More than their opposite units suggest.
- Both are federal statistical products — one maintained by the US EPA, one by the US Census Bureau — so provenance is authoritative on each side (US EPA source profile, US Census Bureau source profile).
- Both score 9 out of 10 on Datadory's rubric against the 7.81 catalog average, with fully verified field dictionaries.
- Both cover the United States as their whole frame — US commerce including imports on one side, US geography down to counties on the other.
- Both anchor the same specialty-chemicals slice, two of the 12 primary records Datadory pools there.
- Neither substitutes for the other: the TSCA side has no volumes, no companies and no places; the census side has no substance identities and no regulatory flags. Most serious questions in this industry end up wanting both.
Fair questions
Is the EPA TSCA Chemical Substance Inventory better than the US Economic Census — Chemical Manufacturing (NAICS 325)?
Better at different jobs, tied on quality at 9 out of 10. TSCA wins on substance identity: 70,774 listings with CAS Registry Numbers, active-or-inactive status and stacked regulatory flags. The census wins on economics: 14,961 establishments, $901.0 billion in shipments, 888,737 employees, cut by geography and industry. Substances versus plants-and-dollars.
Do the two field dictionaries share any fields?
Not a single documented column name appears on both sides. The shared spine is conceptual: an identifier (CASRN versus NAICS2022), a human-readable label (ChemName versus NAICS2022_LABEL) and a flag column (regulatory codes versus suppression markers). Geography, money and jobs exist only on the census side; composition and regulatory meaning exist only on the TSCA side.
Which dataset sizes the US chemical manufacturing market?
The Economic Census record, without competition. It puts the sector at 14,961 establishments, $901.0 billion in value of shipments and 888,737 employees for 2022, repeats the same statistics for states, metros and counties, and adds concentration ratios — a 74.2 percent top-four share in petrochemicals against about 24.7 percent in medicinal and botanical manufacturing.
Which dataset tells you which chemicals can be in US commerce?
The TSCA Inventory. A listing means the substance is an existing chemical in US commerce; absence means new, requiring a Premanufacture Notice before manufacture. Of the 70,774 non-confidential listings, 36,522 are active and 34,252 inactive, each carrying EPA regulatory flags from section 5 orders to polymer exemptions.
Can TSCA listings be connected to census industries?
Not directly — a substance row never maps to an establishment cell. The working bridge is scoping: fix a NAICS 325 line and geography in the census for the market cell, then screen the TSCA list for substances relevant to that product space using ACTIVITY, FLAG and UVCB, joined through your own substance-to-industry mapping.
Can Datadory deliver both datasets together?
Yes. Either record ships alone or both arrive merged into one feed, mapped onto their documented dictionaries before delivery, on a daily, weekly or hourly cadence you choose — the census layer anchoring market size, the TSCA layer carrying substance identity and regulatory flags inside that frame.