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Industry Eyes Data Quality Challenge Of EPA Formaldehyde Risk Analysis

Industry is harshly criticizing EPA's strict draft risk assessment of formaldehyde, arguing that the risk estimates in the assessment are too conservative and raising the possibility of a future Data Quality Act (DQA) challenge if EPA does not substantially revise the assessment. Comments filed with EPA by several trade associations, including the American Chemistry Council (ACC), American Forest & Paper Association (AFPA), American Petroleum Institute and others, question the assessment's compliance with the DQA and raise other issues about the...

EPA Vows To Tighten Draft Vapor Screening Guide Ahead Of 2012 Release

EPA is vowing to strengthen its 2002 draft guidelines for assessing the risks posed by toxic vapors that intrude into structures near contaminated sites, saying in a recent review of the guide that the agency will expand the list of chemicals for which parties must screen, update chemicals' toxicity data and increase the frequency of indoor air testing. The Office of Solid Waste & Emergency Response (OSWER) late last month released a review of its draft 2002 Subsurface Vapor Intrusion...

Risk Policy Report - 09/14/2010

Tue, 2010-09-14 00:00

The NRC Silver Book: The Case for Improving Non-Cancer Risk Assessment

Gary Ginsberg, Connecticut Dept of Public Health, Hartford CT, Jonathan Levy, Harvard School of Public Health, Cambridge MA, A. John Bailer, Miami University, Oxford OH and Lauren Zeise, California EPA, Oakland CA The National Research Council (NRC) published "Science and Decisions: Advancing Risk Assessment" in response to an EPA request for recommendations for near term (2-5 years) and longer term (10-20 years) improvements in how the Agency conducts human health risk assessments. The NRC report, published in December 2009,...

Continuing Debate On NRC Suggestions For Revising EPA Risk Methods

Since its issuance in December 2008, the National Research Council's (NRC) report, Science and Decisions: Advancing Risk Assessment , has sparked a major debate over its call for risk assessors to reconsider the separate ways that cancer and non-cancer human health risk assessments have been performed. EPA and others are debating how those recommendations can and should be implemented, with the agency's Risk Assessment Forum planning an internal workshop in October to discuss responses to Science & Decisions , which...

Industry Claims Novel Secondary NAAQS Unlikely To Survive Legal Fight

Industry officials are stepping up opposition over EPA's plans to issue novel distinct secondary national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) to protect against emissions' adverse ecological and other non-health effects, saying the standards would be costly and exacerbate the recession and also be vulnerable to a likely legal challenge. Environmentalists, however, say that the Clean Air Act requires the agency to issue the welfare-based secondary standards for the six pollutants regulated under EPA's NAAQS. Proponents of strict secondary ambient air...

Activists Say Federal Hypoxia Report Bolsters Call For Nutrient Controls

Environmentalists say a recently published report by a joint task force of federal agencies outlining the state of hypoxia in the nation's waters bolsters their calls for stringent nutrient controls by highlighting the effectiveness of those controls in the places they have been developed and a growing hypoxia problem in many waters where they have not. One environmentalist says the Sept. 3 report by the Interagency Working Group on Harmful Algal Blooms, Hypoxia, and Human Health -- a committee of...

Industry Eyes Data Quality Challenge Of EPA Formaldehyde Risk Analysis

Industry is harshly criticizing EPA's strict draft risk assessment of formaldehyde, arguing that the risk estimates in the assessment are too conservative and raising the possibility of a future Data Quality Act (DQA) challenge if EPA does not substantially revise the assessment. Comments filed with EPA by several trade associations, including the American Chemistry Council (ACC), American Forest & Paper Association (AFPA), American Petroleum Institute and others, question the assessment's compliance with the DQA and raise other issues about the...

Health Benefits Show Need To Tighten EPA Air Transport Rule, Activists Say

The Clean Air Task Force (CATF) has released a new report showing that deaths from air pollution have been cut nearly in half over the last six years as part of the group's effort to pressure EPA to strengthen proposed and upcoming air rules, such as its clean air transport rule (CATR), as a way to further improve public health. CATF attributes a dramatic cut in air pollution deaths to EPA air rules and says that success warrants more reductions...

Advisers Seek New EPA Estimates Of TCE's Non-Cancer Health Effects

Science advisers reviewing EPA's draft assessment of the risks posed by the ubiquitous solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) are backing the agency's assessment that the chemical is a carcinogen in a recently released draft report, but the draft recommendations urge EPA to do additional non-cancer risk estimates based on different health effects. The call from a panel of EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB) for a new assessment is likely to further delay an assessment that has been in the works for years...

GAO Says Perchlorate Exposures Steady Despite Stricter EPA Standard

A revised study from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says the national rate of exposure to perchlorate is generally comparable to levels the office found in 2005 despite measuring potential for harmful exposure at stricter health protective limits set by EPA. The report is available on InsideEPA.com. The exposure data comes as EPA is considering adopting an alternative industry-backed approach for addressing the risks posed by perchlorate, mitigating risks posed by the widespread contaminant by boosting iodine levels in those...

EPA Plans Chemical Use Reporting Measure As Part Of New HPV Test Rule

EPA is planning to require industry to notify the agency prior to manufacturing, importing, or processing certain chemicals that will be subject to mandatory testing requirements under its high production volume (HPV) testing program, the latest in a series of agency efforts to use a significant new use rule (SNUR) to require chemical data. Jim Willis, director of EPA's chemical control division, told a Sept. 9 meeting on the proposed test rule governing the third group of chemicals subject to...

Industry Sees Suit Over Late Changes To EPA's Numeric Nutrient Criteria

Major industry groups are questioning the legal basis of late changes EPA is proposing to its planned numeric nutrient criteria for Florida's waters, saying that the limited time the agency has granted for comment leaves the effort vulnerable to legal challenge. The industry groups are also criticizing the scientific validity of some proposed changes EPA has made, saying that both EPA's original approach and one developed by Florida that EPA is now considering would set in place arbitrary standards that...

EPA Rejects Activists' Push For Strict Cancer-Based Dioxin Cleanup Limit

EPA is rejecting environmentalists' calls to set strict interim cleanup goals for dioxin-contaminated soils based on the toxin's cancer risks and has instead floated a draft guidance to the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) that proposes interim limits based on less-significant non-cancer risks. Sources at federal agencies say that EPA's draft guidance setting preliminary remediation goals (PRGs) for dioxin is based on the persistent contaminant's non-cancer risks. "EPA is recommending non-cancer-based soil screening values for residential and...

NTP Study Of Low-Level Lead Health Effects Could Drive EPA Regulations

The National Toxicology Program (NTP) is developing an analysis of the current scientific evidence surrounding the human health risks of lead at extremely low levels, particularly reproductive effects, an analysis that could drive a host of new EPA regulations governing air emissions, lead dust, drinking water and other environmental releases of the metal. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which intends to use NTP's conclusions when considering new recommended exposure limits (RELs) for workers, requested that NTP's...

Chamber Joins Texas Permit Dispute

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is joining Texas’ effort to block EPA from taking over the state’s air permitting program, filing a petition for judicial review of EPA’s decision to disapprove “flexible” air permitting in Texas and replace it with federally-issued permitting. In a Sept. 13 petition filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, the Chamber asks the court to review EPA’s July 15 final rule disapproving Texas’ flexible air permitting program which allows companies to...

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