Industry Asks EPA To Redo Strict Risk Studies For Several Key Chemicals

Industry groups are urging EPA to redo risk assessments for several controversial chemicals -- including the flame retardant decabrominated diphenyl ether (deca) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S) -- that industry says are too strict, offering new data that they believe should prompt the agency to weaken its various risk studies. State environmental regulators and environmentalists meanwhile are asking EPA to undertake new risk assessments of some chemicals whose risks are unknown, including amphibole mineral fibers similar to asbestos. EPA's risk assessments...

States, Activists Claim EPA 'Residual Risk' Method Spurs Weaker Air Rules

State air officials and environmentalists are sparring with EPA over the agency's approach to performing "residual risk" reviews to determine whether it should revise existing air toxics rules for various industry sectors, claiming that the Obama administration's first residual risk reviews signal an approach that leads to insufficiently strict rules. EPA in September proposed residual risk rules for six industry sectors, including chromium electroplating and marine tank vessel loading. The rules assess the remaining health risks caused by emissions from...

Activists Vow To Sue EPA Over Novel Oregon Water Toxics Standard

Environmentalists are planning on suing EPA for failing to properly review Oregon's proposed revisions to narrative water criteria for toxics that assume high fish consumption rates, citing violations of a number of federal statutes, and activist sources say they hope the suit will force the agency to speed up reviews of state water quality criteria nationally. While activists were generally supportive of EPA's mandate last year that Oregon set stringent criteria to protect Native American populations that consume large amounts...

States, Environmentalists Seek Stricter EPA Air Rule For Chromium Plating

State officials and environmentalists are criticizing EPA's recently proposed air toxics rule for chromium plating operations as insufficiently stringent and attacking the agency's decision to soften the rule in response to industry outcry, while the Defense Department (DOD) is questioning the scope of some compliance provisions in the proposal. EPA earlier this year issued a proposed "residual risk" rule for the chromium plating industry sector. Under the residual risk program the agency reviews the remaining health risks posed by emissions...

Industry Request Prompts California To Strengthen Chromium 6 Water Limit

California's Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA) has released for public review a hexavalent chromium (Cr6) drinking water public health goal (PHG) even more stringent than its first-in-the-country 2009 standard, following an independent review performed at the request of industry, which argued the previous draft PHG was too stringent. Industries and some drinking water agencies strongly opposed the original draft PHG and are likely to raise even more concerns about the more stringent, updated standard. EPA, meanwhile, has indicated it is also...

Industry Urges Stringent Review Of EPA's Hexavalent Chromium Analysis

The chemical industry is urging EPA to seek strict expert peer review of its recently released assessment of the risks that the metal hexavalent chromium (Cr6) poses when ingested, due to the assessment's highly influential nature, suggesting the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) or the agency's Science Advisory Board (SAB) conduct the review. EPA's draft assessment of Cr6, has been controversial since its release last September because it suggests for the first time that Cr6 is a human carcinogen when...

California Proposes Stricter Drinking Water Goal For Perchlorate

California's health hazard office is proposing a tighter new drinking water public health goal (PHG) for the controversial rocket fuel ingredient perchlorate, of 1 part per billion (ppb), stricter than the state's existing standard of 6 ppb, which could lead to stricter cleanup standards at contaminated sites. The Golden State's Jan. 7 announcement came a day after Senate Environment & Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) announced that she intends to keep pushing for a federal drinking water standard...

Challenge To California's Proposed Prop. 65 Chemical Listing Targets NTP

In another attack on scientific research conducted by the National Toxicology Program (NTP), the personal care products industry is challenging California's proposed Proposition 65 carcinogen listing of a chemical used in soaps, cosmetics and shampoos. The industry has been granted more time to make its case against the proposed listing, which brings with it a range of legal vulnerabilities for companies and potentially damaging stigmas if warning labels are required on numerous products. At issue is the proposed listing of...

EPA Eyes New Method For Estimating Health Benefits Of Regulations

EPA is proposing a new method for measuring the public health benefits of its regulations, including reduced mortality levels, a major step that could help the agency defend its regulatory decisions and address long-standing criticisms about its existing method by dropping a measurement that places a statistical value on a human life. EPA late last month released a draft paper, "Valuing Mortality Risk Reductions for Environmental Policy," prior to a Jan. 20-21 meeting of EPA Science Advisory Board's (SAB) augmented...

Rebuffing Industry, EPA Adopts New Ratios For Estimating Dioxins' Risks

Backed by scientific experts, EPA has adopted new ratios, known as toxicity equivalence factors (TEFs), for quantifying the risks and setting cleanup levels for scores of dioxins and dioxin-like compounds, rebuffing long-standing industry criticisms that the use of TEFs is unscientific and can overstate risk. EPA Jan. 6 unveiled a final document, "Recommended Toxicity Equivalence Factors (TEFs) for Human Health Risk Assessments of 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin and Dioxin-Like Compounds [TCDD]," that contains the new values. Relevant documents are available on InsideEPA.com. The...

IG Criticism Of Antimicrobial Regime Dodges Key Test Method Controversy

EPA's Inspector General (IG) appears to have sidestepped a longstanding controversy over a test method used to evaluate the efficacy of hospital disinfectants in its recent report slamming the agency's Antimicrobial Testing Program (ATP) for allowing more than 40 percent of products under its purview to go untested, and allowing other "failed" products to escape enforcement. The ATP program orchestrates efficacy testing for antimicrobial products used in hospitals and other medical settings to destroy harmful bacteria. The products are regulated...

New EPA Risk Estimate Begins To Drive Stricter Standards For Fluoride

EPA is proposing to strengthen its estimates of the health risks posed by the mineral fluoride, which has long been added to public drinking water systems for its dental hygiene benefits, a move that is expected to drive more stringent regulatory standards for the substance in some drinking water systems and has already prompted the agency to propose withdrawing tolerances for one fluoride pesticide. The agency Jan. 7 unveiled a new risk analysis that recommends setting the reference dose (RfD),...

Manganese Interest Group Comments

Minnesota Pollution Control Agency

Pine River Superfund Citizen Task Force Comments

American Forest & Paper Association Comments

Albemarle Corporation Comments


American Chemistry Council Comments

Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Comments

Environmentalists' Comments

Association of California Water Agencies Comments

PPG Industries, Inc. Comments


http://InsideEpa.com/sites/insideepa.com/documents/jan2011/epa2011_0059.pdf


As Interim Step, States May Push EPA To Implement Bush Ozone Standard

State air regulators in the Northeast and elsewhere are raising concern over EPA's recent delay in issuing a revised ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) and may soon push the agency to fully implement the contested Bush EPA standard issued in 2008 rather than wait for EPA to issue and implement a new standard. EPA has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to grant it permission to extend the release date for the...

EPA Says Ozone Fee Guide 'Interpretive' Rule Exempt From Court Review

EPA in a new legal brief says its guidance allowing states to propose alternatives to imposing fees on emission sources contributing to ozone pollution is at most an “interpretive” rule not subject to court review, in a bid to have a federal appeals court reject environmentalists' lawsuit asking the court to vacate the guidance. In the Jan. 7 brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit the agency also reiterates arguments that the guidance...

Industry Filing Outlines Broad Challenges To EPA Cement Air Rule

The Portland Cement Association (PCA) in a new legal filing outlines a broad range of arguments it will raise in a lawsuit over EPA's strict maximum achievable control technology (MACT) and new source performance standards (NSPS) to cut air toxics and criteria pollutant emissions from the cement sector, expanding on narrower criticisms of the MACT it raised in a petition for EPA to reconsider the rule. PCA is leading industry's opposition to EPA's Sept. 9 final rule establishing the combined...

Northwest Environmental Advocates Notice Of Intent To Sue

Oregon Department Of Environmental Quality Proposed Toxics Rule

Revised Tables For Oregon Toxics Criteria


http://InsideEpa.com/sites/insideepa.com/documents/jan2011/epa2011_0057.pdf


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