From Inside TSCA

Environmentalists Warn AI, NAMs Could Undercut TSCA Assessments

As EPA ramps up its use of artificial intelligence (AI) and new approach methods (NAMs) in TSCA reviews, environmentalists are warning that such methods could undercut protective risk evaluations and are urging the agency to rely on its children’s health office and advisors to continue to guide the use of such methods. In comments submitted to EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee (CHPAC) earlier this year, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and other groups raised concerns about EPA’s plan...

OCSPP Integrates 170 ORD Scientists In ‘Final’ Reorganization, Deklava Says

EPA’s reorganization of the chemicals office has gone “final,” a top official says, resulting in the integration of more than 170 scientists from the research office who are expected to bolster the office’s efforts to clear a backlog of TSCA new chemical reviews as well as other Trump administration priorities for the office. The Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention’s (OCSPP) “reorganization was final on Sunday [Oct. 19]. I’m pretty excited about that,” Lynn Dekleva, deputy assistant administrator of...

Key Senate EPW Members Hint At Priorities For Bipartisan TSCA Talks

The chair and ranking member of the Senate environment committee’s chemicals panel are signaling a desire to work together to address concerns about consumer exposure to PFAS and other harmful chemicals in any TSCA reform push, though prospects for any legislation remain dim given partisan differences and other concerns. During the Oct. 23 hearing before the environment committee’s Subcommittee on Chemical Safety, Waste Management, Environmental Justice, and Regulatory Oversight, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), the ranking member, asked Tracey Woodruff, a...

House Lawmakers Raise Concerns About Bipartisan TSCA Bill Prospects

Two members of a key House panel -- one Democrat, one Republican -- are raising concerns about a closing window to revise TSCA, noting that the shutdown and a toxic partisan relationship are creating more challenges to the effort, even as the Democrat says a bipartisan approach would provide the most enduring solution. Reps. Gary Palmer (R-AL), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s environment subpanel, and Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), a subcommittee member, made their remarks at the U.S...

EPW Reschedules Chemical Regulation Hearing As House Nears TSCA Draft

The Senate environment committee has re-scheduled for next week its long-pending oversight hearing on chemicals regulation, which could offer insight into a bipartisan TSCA bill Chairman Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) recently reiterated the panel is crafting while House Republicans prepare to release a draft bill of their own. The Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) announced Oct. 16 that the panel’s chemical safety subcommittee, chaired by Sen. John Curtis (R-UT), will hold an Oct. 23 hearing titled, “Examining the Beneficial...

Industry Seeks More Time For D4 Comments Citing EPA Scope Changes

Industry groups are pressing EPA to extend the 60-day public comment on its recently proposed TSCA evaluation of the chemical known as D4, arguing EPA has inappropriately expanded the evaluation’s scope while its proposed changes to the TSCA risk evaluation framework rule further complicate the unique evaluation’s path forward. In Oct. 6 comments recently posted to EPA’s electronic docket, several companies led by the American Chemistry Council’s Silicones Environmental, Health and Safety Center (SEHSC) are urging the agency to extend...

EPA Touts Trump Improvements To Clear Chemical Risk Notification Backlog

EPA is touting “process improvements implemented by the Trump administration” that it says has allowed the agency to clear a substantial backlog of chemical risk notifications required under TSCA section 8(e), which requires chemical manufacturers to inform EPA about substances that present a “substantial risk” of injury. EPA’s chemical office announced Oct. 10 that a special team processed over 3,000 submissions, flagging 920 as “high interest” and distributing them across the agency. The backlog clearance was accomplished by a team...

DTSC Finalizes Regulatory Responses Required For Spray Foam Systems

California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) has finalized proposed “regulatory response” mandates for makers of certain spray polyurethane foam (SPF) systems under the state’s Safer Consumer Products (SCP) green chemistry program, including a scaled back requirement for manufacturers to fund safer alternatives. In an Oct. 7 announcement and an Oct. 6 notice of final determination , DTSC details three required regulatory response actions that manufacturers of SPF systems with unreacted methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) must take to continue selling...

GOP Poised To Swiftly Confirm Troutman Over Democrats’ Stiff Opposition

Senate Republicans appear headed to confirm Doug Troutman to lead EPA’s chemicals office over strident objections from Democrats on the Senate environment committee due to Troutman’s industry ties, with the committee chairman also securing Troutman’s commitment to work with the committee on additional reforms to TSCA. In her opening remarks at Troutman’s Oct. 8 confirmation hearing, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, described Troutman as a “well-qualified nominee[],” adding that she supports his...

Peer Reviewers Urge Major Changes To TSCA Phthalate Drafts Despite Deadlines

EPA science advisors in a newly released peer review report are recommending multiple significant changes to improve the suite of draft TSCA phthalate analyses, including a novel cumulative analysis, while acknowledging that “many” of the committee’s recommendations will not be addressed because of EPA’s strict court-ordered deadlines. The Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals’ (SACC) Oct. 6 report praises EPA’s effort to consider cumulative risk but also questions the agency’s ability to assess the individual chemicals, which are used to make...

EPA Poised To Shut Down TSCA Program Despite Funding From User Fees

EPA’s newly released contingency plan for the looming government shutdown excludes the TSCA program from its summary list of “significant agency activities that will continue during a lapse” in funding, indicating the program will cease operating despite the user fees EPA collects for mandated activities under TSCA sections 4, 5 and 6. The contingency plan EPA released Sept. 30 indicates that Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) activities, many already behind schedule, will only fall farther behind. These include the backlogged...

Chemical Industry Urges TSCA ‘Adjustment’ To Preempt State PFAS Rules

Chemical sector groups are urging lawmakers to make an “adjustment” to TSCA in order to preempt state PFAS rules in Minnesota, Maine and other states, one of a series of actions they are seeking as part of the Trump administration’s broad effort to target state laws “adversely affect the national economy.” “One potential adjustment to TSCA’s preemption provision is that states could be preempted from enacting or enforcing state PFAS in products laws to the extent EPA has concluded that...

EPA Questions On Key TSCA Terms’ Definitions Could Narrow Evaluations

EPA is seeking comments on whether and how to define key TSCA terms in its replacement to the Biden-era “framework” rule that sets procedures for TSCA risk evaluations, which could narrow the breadth of future evaluations and rules through first-time descriptions of terms Congress added to the reformed law but that remain in question. “Probably the most surprising thing in the [proposed] rule, is that EPA asks commenters, ‘Should EPA define what is reasonably foreseeable?’” an industry source tells Inside...

EPA Floats Proposal To Scale Back Biden-Era TSCA Framework Rule

The Trump EPA is proposing to overhaul major portions of the Biden-era rule outlining how the agency evaluates chemical risks under TSCA including eliminating a requirement to make a single, “whole chemical” risk determination and revising how the agency will consider occupational exposure controls. “In this action, EPA proposes to rescind or revise certain 2024 amendments to the procedural framework rule to effectuate the best reading of the statute and ensure that the procedural framework rule does not impede the...

USW Says EPA’s Asbestos Rule Reversal Rationale Makes Its Legal Case

The United Steel Workers (USW) is urging the 5th Circuit to review the Trump EPA’s rationale for its July reversal on rewriting the Biden-era rule phasing out six uses of chrysotile asbestos, arguing the statement is a “clear concession” to USW’s argument that the 2024 rule violates TSCA because it does not adequately or equally protect all workers. “[S]ince it filed its brief, EPA has publicly stated -- in agreement with USW’s arguments -- ‘that the Biden Administration’s risk management...

Draft TSCA D4 Evaluation Finds Risk To Workers, Seeks More Release Data

EPA’s draft TSCA risk evaluation of the siloxane known as D4 preliminarily finds that 23 uses of the chemical pose unreasonable risk to workers, the statute’s trigger for risk management rule making, but EPA also says it needs additional data to make preliminary conclusions for 18 other uses of D4 included in the evaluation’s scope. The agency Sept. 17 released its draft Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) risk evaluation of octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4), a substance used in the production of silicone...

EPA Extends Certain TCE Compliance Deadlines Days Ahead Of Bans

EPA is extending certain compliance deadlines in the Biden-era TSCA rule phasing out many uses of trichloroethylene (TCE) that it says critical industry sectors will be unable to meet, just days before the first of those deadlines for wastewater discharges and nuclear fuel manufacturing were set to take effect. EPA released Sept. 12 a pre-publication copy of a Federal Register notice describing the interim final rule, which extends the compliance deadline for the 2024 TCE risk management rule’s ban...

EPA Prepares For Peer Review Of Manufacturer-Requested D4 Evaluation

EPA is seeking scientists to serve on a panel to peer review the draft TSCA evaluation of the siloxane known as D4, one of a handful of evaluations the agency agreed to complete in response to a manufacturer request, even as officials struggle to comply with a Biden-era consent decree that set steep deadlines for completing a series of other evaluations. EPA announced Sept. 10 that it “is seeking nominations of scientific and technical experts to be considered as ad...

Zeldin Overruled Top Appointees To Reverse Asbestos Rule Redo Plan

The Trump EPA’s recent 180-degree reversal on its initial plan to rescind the Biden-era TSCA rule phasing out six uses of chrysotile asbestos and instead issue new guidance on the 2024 rule, came after Administrator Lee Zeldin overruled two other senior Trump EPA appointees, a source with knowledge of the internal matter says. According to the source, after a series of emergency meetings in July, Zeldin reversed a decision by Lynn Dekleva, deputy assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical...

Industry Groups Press Congress For Action On Consensus TSCA Priorities

As House Republicans prepare to unveil TSCA reform legislation, a broad alliance of industry trade groups is urging key members of Congress to further revise the law in line with new consensus priorities the groups have agreed to after appearing to resolve divisions that had split them earlier this year. The American Alliance for Innovation (AAI), representing scores of trade groups from the American Chemistry Council to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the Household & Commercial Products Association, National...

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