From Inside TSCA

Court Rejects Broad EDF Challenge To TSCA CBI Rule But Backs Industry

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has largely upheld EPA’s rule for handling confidential business information (CBI) under TSCA, rejecting environmentalists’ broad claims that the law shields far too much data from disclosure while vacating a much narrower set of provisions that industry groups targeted. In its Dec. 20 decision , a unanimous three-judge D.C. Circuit panel in Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), et al., v. EPA, et al. , says language in the rule that...

Chamber Urges Court To Block ‘Compelled’ Prop. 65 Acrylamide Warning

The California Chamber of Commerce is pushing back on new claims by state Attorney General (AG) Rob Bonta (D) that companies were not “compelled” to apply Proposition 65 toxicity warning labels to food products containing the carcinogen acrylamide, as the business group seeks a final ruling in its long-running free-speech suit against the warning requirements. “For the first time in this case’s five-year odyssey, the AG questions whether Proposition 65 warnings for acrylamide are ‘in fact, compelled,’” reads a Dec...

EPA Targets Widely Used Industrial Chemicals For New TSCA Evaluations

EPA is formally deeming five substances used in plastic manufacturing, including vinyl chloride, “high-priority” for TSCA evaluation, while simultaneously announcing a fresh one-year prioritization cycle for another set of five chemicals that includes the widely used industrial compounds benzene and styrene. The agency is slated to publish a notice in the Dec. 18 Federal Register that finalizes high-priority designations for all five of the chemicals that EPA was considering for review under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) --...

Stakeholders Clash Over Planned SCP Listing Of Nail Products With MMA

Industry groups are opposing the California toxics department’s proposal to list nail products containing methyl methacrylate (MMA) as a “priority product” under the Safer Consumer Products (SCP) green chemistry program and faulting its planned concentration threshold for the chemical, while public-health groups support the listing and hope to tighten it. In particular, the two sides are at odds over a proposed “alternatives analysis” threshold of 1,000 parts per million (ppm), which would require companies to identify safer substitutes for MMA...

Trump Foes Look To States, ‘Shadow’ Reviews To Oppose TSCA Rollbacks

Environmentalists and academics who have pushed EPA to adopt stringent approaches to TSCA chemical reviews said they are planning to oppose likely rollbacks under the Trump administration by looking to states as “laboratories” for more protective science and conducting “shadow” versions of the agency’s evaluations using their favored standards. With the Trump administration all but certain to roll back many of the Biden EPA’s approaches to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), “the need for implementing science-based health-protective policies across...

EPA Finalizes TSCA Rule Imposing Worker-Safety Mandates On CTC Uses

EPA has issued a final TSCA risk management rule for the solvent carbon tetrachloride (CTC) that sets strict new worker-protection requirements for many applications of the chemical while allowing industry to continue most if not all of those current uses, while extending key compliance deadlines from what it proposed last year. The agency posted its CTC rule online Dec. 11, ahead of its yet-unscheduled publication in the Federal Register . The rule will take effect 30 days after that publication...

EPA Finalizes TSCA Rules Banning Most Uses Of Common Solvents PCE, TCE

EPA has signed its long-awaited final TSCA rules restricting uses of the industrial solvents trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE) with several changes from the 2023 proposals, including a much more lenient “interim” workplace exposure limit for TCE and an extended deadline for facilities to adopt new worker protections for PCE. But it is not clear whether the two Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) rules -- released Dec. 9 -- will survive the incoming Trump administration despite Biden EPA efforts to...

Union Carbide Launches Rare Challenge To Redone 1,4-Dioxane Evaluation

Update Appended Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) is asking a federal appeals court to review EPA’s newly revised TSCA evaluation and risk determination for 1,4-dioxane -- the first suit over any of the Biden administration’s revisions to Trump-era chemical evaluations, and a potential test of when courts will allow such challenges. UCC, a subsidiary of Dow Chemical, filed its petition for review on Dec. 2 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. While the petition offers no...

EPA Adopts Narrow Rule Rewriting TSCA New-Chemical Review ‘Framework’

EPA has unveiled its final TSCA rule overhauling its “framework” for reviewing new chemical uses, but the redone policy is likely to face wide criticism as the agency is already describing it as “largely similar” to a 2023 proposal whose narrow scope disappointed industry and environmental groups that had all sought broader reforms. The agency released a pre-publication version of its Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) new-chemicals rule on Dec. 4, just a day after it cleared a months-long White...

California Floats Airborne 1,4-DCB Risk Levels Amid Ongoing TSCA Review

California’s health hazard office is proposing more stringent risk exposure levels for the multi-use chlorinated chemical 1,4-Dichlorobenzene (1,4-DCB) for use in the state’s air toxics “hot spots” program, even as EPA is continuing work on a long-delayed TSCA risk evaluation for the same compound. The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) on Nov. 29 announced the availability of a draft technical document for a 45-day public review that summarizes the noncancer reference exposure levels (RELs) for 1,4-DCB. OEHHA plans...

EPA Emphasizes TSCA Lead Enforcement Push Ahead Of Trump Transition

A new EPA enforcement alert seeks to highlight recent enforcement actions targeting “widespread violations” of its TSCA lead renovation, repair and painting (RRP) rules, underscoring Biden officials’ efforts to tighten implementation of those requirements as the transition to a second Trump administration threatens pullbacks of such policies. The Nov. 22 alert “highlights the importance of complying with the RRP Rule and the enforcement actions below illustrate the wide range of enforcement tools the EPA can use to deter and penalize...

EPA’s Draft TSCA Evaluation Finds 1,3-Butadiene Poses Widespread Risks

EPA’s draft TSCA evaluation of the synthetic rubber component 1,3-butadiene preliminarily concludes that inhalation exposure to the ubiquitous chemical poses unreasonable risk to the health of workers and the general population, which can be exposed to emissions from manufacturing facilities using it. EPA released the draft evaluation on Dec. 2 for public comment and peer review. If finalized, the draft unreasonable risk determination will trigger regulatory risk management requirements under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The evaluation is among...

EPA Finds Risk From Legacy Asbestos Uses In ‘Part 2’ TSCA Evaluation

EPA has unveiled its long-awaited final TSCA evaluation of “legacy” asbestos uses, finding ongoing risk to workers and the general population from several asbestos fiber types and applications that were excluded from its Trump-era “Part 1” review -- and triggering a mandate for the incoming Trump administration to regulate those dangers. The agency released the final evaluation Nov. 27 , ahead of a Dec. 1 deadline set out in a court settlement between EPA and Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO)...

EPA Appeals eBay Enforcement Suit, Testing ‘User Speech’ Liability Shield

EPA is appealing a federal district judge’s novel decision that applied a controversial telecom law protecting tech companies from liability for users’ speech to shield eBay from enforcement over sales of products banned under TSCA, the Clean Air Act and pesticide rules, just as the Trump administration is expected to try to narrow or repeal the shield. The agency filed a notice of appeal in United States v. eBay on Nov. 26, nearly three months after Judge Orelia E...

Bonta Renews Bid To Dismiss Plastics Industry Suit To Block Subpoenas

California Attorney General Rob Bona (D) is urging a federal judge to dismiss a plastics industry suit seeking to block enforcement of subpoenas for his probe into plastics pollution and plastics recycling claims, reiterating charges that the court lacks jurisdiction and noting that a state court is poised to hear merits arguments over the same issues. The Plastics Industry Association, Inc. (PIA) “fails to demonstrate personal jurisdiction over Rob Bonta, in his Official Capacity as Attorney General of California ...

Court Approves Aggressive Settlement Deadlines For TSCA Evaluations

A federal judge has formally approved EPA’s separate settlements with environmental and industry groups setting deadlines to complete more than 20 past-due TSCA risk evaluations (REs) over the next two years, tying the Trump administration to an aggressive schedule and teeing up release of at least four final reviews before the inauguration. The two consent decrees , which Judge Dabney Friedrich of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia entered on Nov. 22, require EPA to finalize three...

Delayed ‘Judgment’ Pushes EPA Decision On Fluoride Appeal To Trump Term

A federal judge’s two-month delay in issuing a formal “judgment” cementing his ruling that TSCA requires EPA to regulate fluoride in drinking water appears to have extended the timeline for an appeal to Jan. 21, potentially leaving any decision to the Trump administration whose health secretary-designate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is calling for ending fluoridation. But any decision not to appeal the underlying ruling could be tricky for the incoming administration despite Kennedy’s stance, as it would leave uncontested the...

California AG Says Suit Over Prop. 65 Acrylamide Warning Lacks Evidence

California Attorney General (AG) Rob Bonta (D) is urging a federal district court to reject the California Chamber of Commerce’s (CalChamber) bid for summary judgment in its free-speech challenge to Proposition 65 cancer warning requirements for the food chemical acrylamide, saying the group falls short of the “evidentiary burden” such claims must clear. “First, CalChamber fails to establish that any of its members were actually ‘compelled’ to apply acrylamide-related warnings to any of their food products,” reads Bonta’s Nov. 18...

EPA Sees Lengthy Process To Regulate 1,4-Dioxane In Drinking Water

EPA’s water and chemicals offices say they expect to take years to decide whether to craft a separate Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) rule for the solvent 1,4-dioxane after regulating it under TSCA, according to a novel joint memo that provides an early roadmap for how the agency could navigate such split rulemakings under the reformed toxics law. The Nov. 6 memo , signed by EPA’s Michal Freedhoff and Bruno Pigott -- heads of the Office of Chemical Safety and...

Trump EPA Likely To Seek Broad Rollbacks On TSCA But Faces Hurdles

Industry attorneys say the incoming Trump EPA will likely try to reverse a host of the Biden administration’s TSCA actions including chemical-specific rules and risk evaluations as well as overall policies for implementing the law, but could struggle to overcome legal barriers to quick rollbacks as well as a potential wave of court challenges to its efforts. “One thing Trump found out he can’t do -- he found this out in his first administration -- you can’t just take regulations...

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