ISSUE: Inside TSCA

EPA Warns On Disinfectant Device Claims, Rejects Call For Standards

EPA is warning manufacturers and others not to make claims about the effectiveness of pesticidal devices, such as ozone generators and UV lights, in addressing the coronavirus, though the agency is also rejecting calls from industry groups to craft efficacy standards for the products given uncertainty about their regulatory status. In a compliance advisory issued June 1, EPA reiterated its commitment to its List N registered products that it endorses for use against SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses, and reminds consumers...

SACC Weighs Urging EPA To Redo Key Pieces Of Draft Perc Evaluation

EPA science advisors are raising concerns about the agency’s human health hazard assessment in its draft risk evaluation of the common solvent perchloroethylene (perc or PCE), with some suggesting the panel could recommend the agency re-analyze key portions of the agency’s cancer and non-cancer evaluations. Were the advisors to formally recommend such a step and EPA acts on it, it could significantly delay agency efforts to finalize the perc evaluation, a step officials seem unlikely to take given their push...

EPA Sends Final Perchlorate Rule To OMB For Review

EPA has sent for mandatory White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) pre-publication review its final rule on how or whether it will regulate perchlorate under the Safe Drinking Water Act, coming not long after the agency signaled it was unlikely to regulate the substance in drinking water. The agency on May 27 sent its final perchlorate rule to OMB. OMB review can typically take up to 90 days, but can be faster or slower, depending on the circumstances...

Critics Renew Call For Congress To Ban Asbestos After EPA Review

Environmentalists and other groups are renewing their calls for Congress to ban asbestos because EPA’s draft evaluation of the substance -- which is slated for review early next month -- fails to adequately assess the minerals’ risks and will not result in adequate regulation, they charged during a May 28 press conference. EPA’s “discredited” approach under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to the asbestos risk assessment is “a giant step backward from the high quality science in previous assessments,...

California Judges Doubt ACC Claims In Challenge Of DINP Prop. 65 Listing

California appellate judges appeared skeptical of claims by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) that a state scientific panel arbitrarily and capriciously listed the widely used plasticizer chemical diisononyl phthalate (DINP) as a carcinogen under the Proposition 65 product warning law primarily because of misleading instructions from the chair. “I’m troubled by the fact that this is speculation and the courts over and over again are asked by counsel in various kinds of cases -- in all kinds of cases --...

EPA Fails To Resolve IG’s Calls To Bolster OECA’s Role In TSCA 5(e) Orders

EPA has failed to resolve calls from its Office of Inspector General (OIG) to bolster the role its enforcement office plays in reviewing consent orders crafted by its toxics office under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) for addressing risks from new chemicals, prompting a new standoff between the agency and its watchdog. In a May 28 report , the OIG says EPA has failed to adequately address its calls for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) to...

Upcoming Air Rule Fails To Quell SACC’s Concerns Over Perc Evaluation

EPA science advisors appeared skeptical of agency claims that it reasonably precluded from its draft evaluation of perchloroethylene (perc or PCE) consumers’ and bystanders’ chronic exposures to the chemical from drycleaners co-located in residential buildings because an air toxics rule that takes effect later this year bars such scenarios. During the first two days of their May 26-29 meeting to peer review EPA’s draft Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) evaluation of perc, advisors questioned EPA’s decisions to only address risks...

EDF Action Targets EPA’s TCE Evaluation In Arizona Ad

Disappointed with EPA’s evaluation of trichloroethylene (TCE), the Environmental Defense Fund’s (EDF) political wing, EDF Action, is running political advertisements in the swing-state of Arizona criticizing President Donald Trump for the agency’s Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) assessment. The 15-second ad, which EDF Action says cost six figures, “run on premium digital platforms in the Phoenix area from May 27 -- July 1." Arizona is expected to be a swing state in the 2020 presidential election, and EDF has for...

OMB Approves EPA Response To Petitions For Listing 1-BP As HAP

The White House has approved EPA’s long-awaited response to petitions seeking to list 1-bromopropane (1-BP) as a Clean Air Act hazardous air pollutant (HAP), an action that could open the door to new air rules and help address science advisors’ concerns that EPA’s pending 1-BP toxics assessment precluded consideration of air exposures to the substance. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) May 23 approved EPA’s notice responding to years-old state and industry petitions seeking to list the substance, according...

Industry Wins Another Extension To Report TSCA Fee Obligations

EPA has extended by more than two weeks the deadline for companies to self-report obligations for paying fees to cover the cost of the agency’s next 20 risk evaluations under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), even as officials weigh a pending industry request to delay any payments until next year because of the pandemic. In a Federal Register notice slated for publication May 28, the agency announced that it was extending until June 15 the prior May 27...

EPA Further Eases FIFRA Rules To Boost Anti-Virals For Food Sector

EPA is continuing its efforts to relax supply chain and other anti-microbial rules governing disinfectants to address the coronavirus, issuing a series of measures over the past few weeks aimed at bolstering anti-viral supplies for the food processing sector, which has been hit hard by the pandemic. Key among them is the agency’s decision issued earlier this month to add isopropyl alcohol -- a key chemical in sanitizers that are used in the industry -- as the ninth ingredient on...

Judge Codifies Key Rulings Ahead Of Landmark TSCA Trial On Fluoride

The federal judge overseeing the first-time trial next month on whether EPA must regulate water fluoridation under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) has codified his earlier verbal rulings barring the agency from presenting evidence on the practice’s benefits while leaving the door open for EPA to argue that it could defer any regulation. In a recent order that fills in several key procedural details ahead of the trial that is slated to begin June 8, Judge Edward Chen of...

2nd Circuit Allows PFAS Medical Monitoring Claims To Proceed

A federal appeals court is allowing plaintiffs to make personal injury claims seeking medical monitoring based on elevated levels of a per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) in their blood, rejecting a chemical company’s argument that the plaintiffs must allege symptoms or a disease. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled May 18 in Thelma Benoit, et al. v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp., et al. to affirm a lower court ruling that denied the defendants’ attempt to...

Top Toxics Official Expects EPA To ‘Tailor’ First TSCA Management Rules

As EPA moves closer to completing some of its first chemical evaluations under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), a top official says he expects the agency will narrowly “tailor” any risk management rules the agency eventually writes, to address any “unreasonable risks” it finds in its final evaluations. EPA will consider “how to more effectively tailor risk management solutions for those different unreasonable risks identified,” Stan Barone, deputy director of EPA’s Risk Assessment Division in EPA’s toxics office,...

As Deadline Looms, Industry Asks EPA For 'Forbearance' Of TSCA Fees

Update Appended Citing fiscal concerns stemming from the pandemic, the chemical industry is asking EPA to delay until next year any fees companies may have to pay to cover the cost of the agency’s next 20 risk evaluations being conducted under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), as firms are due May 27 to report on their potential eligibility. “Manufacturers are faced with enormous liquidity issues and are striving to manage cash-flow. For these reasons, we respectfully request you...

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