From Inside TSCA

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...

Trump EPA Offers Slimmer, Delayed Regulatory Agenda For TSCA Program

The Trump administration’s newly released “spring 2025” regulatory agenda shows a significantly slimmer agenda for EPA’s TSCA program than in the Biden EPA’s final months, with most items remaining on the agenda seeing extended deadlines for action and several rules moving from the active to the “long-term actions” section of the agenda. While the Trump EPA has repeatedly sought delays in multiple court challenges to Biden-era Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) rules in order to rewrite them, only two of...

In Surprise, House Poised To Unveil Draft TSCA Reform Bill Ahead Of Senate

Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are poised to release a draft TSCA reform bill soon after lawmakers return from their summer recess next week, sources say, a surprise given that many observers expected the Senate to go first on advancing any legislation. “The House was putting pen to paper this month with hopes of having some draft when Congress returns,” an industry source tells Inside TSCA . “Last I heard, they are ahead of the Senate.” Such...

EPA Again Delays TCE Rule From Taking Effect While Litigation Continues

EPA is extending once again the compliance deadlines for TSCA restrictions on certain critical uses of the solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) to preserve the status quo while waiting for a federal appeals court to respond to competing requests over how consolidated litigation over the Biden-era TCE risk management rule should proceed. In a pre-publication Federal Register notice , EPA says it is postponing by an additional 90 days -- until Nov. 17 -- “the conditions imposed on each of the...

Dischargers Cite TSCA 1,4-DX Re-Evaluation In Defense Against Water Suit

The city of Asheboro, NC, and a nearby plastics manufacturer are pointing to the Trump EPA’s reconsideration of a TSCA risk assessment for 1,4-dioxane (1,4-DX) in their defense of a Clean Water Act (CWA) citizen suit alleging they unlawfully discharged the chemical -- though environmentalists say EPA’s action is irrelevant. The defendants in Cape Fear River Watch and Haw River Assembly v. City of Asheboro, et al. , pending in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North...

Facing EPA Attack, Plaintiffs Defend Standing In TSCA Fluoride Appeal

Environmentalist plaintiffs seeking to force EPA to regulate drinking water fluoridation under TSCA are defending their standing to bring suit on the issue, urging a federal appeals court to reject EPA’s effort to discredit a key plaintiff’s standing by arguing the effort comes too late and involves statements subject to reasonable dispute. “There are no unusual or extraordinary circumstances to justify taking judicial notice of facts that EPA could have, but did not present to the district court,” Food and...

Court Grants Permanent Injunction On Prop. 65 Warning For Titanium Dioxide

A federal district court is ordering a permanent injunction on the California Proposition 65 cancer warning for titanium dioxide, finding that the industry plaintiff has met all the same tests it did when the judge issued a preliminary injunction in 2024 and that the warning language is unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment. “The Court finds there have not been sufficient developments in the evidentiary record or to the warning language since its prior Order to change the conclusion that...

Observers See TSCA Reform Continuing Amid OCSPP Pick’s Moderate Views

Douglas Troutman, President Donald Trump’s pick to serve as EPA’s chemicals chief, brings a “middle-of-the-road” perspective and an interest in improving TSCA new-chemical reviews, observers say, though he is still widely expected to advance the Trump EPA’s deregulatory agenda amid staffing uncertainty and stakeholder clashes. Trump nominated Troutman , acting CEO and general counsel of the American Cleaning Institute (ACI) -- formerly the Soap and Detergent Association -- to head the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) on...

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