ISSUE: Inside TSCA

Loper Bright’s Effects On TSCA Litigation Still Too Early To Predict

A year after the Supreme Court’s controversial Loper Bright ruling limiting courts’ deference to agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous statutory language, it is too early to predict how it will affect multiple TSCA challenges before various federal courts, although one case may hold clues for how one appeals court may address such matters. Kelly Garson, a senior associate with the chemicals-focused law firm Bergeson & Campbell, suggested during a recent webinar hosted by the firm that a line of questions...

EPA Agrees To Develop Guide For Evaluating State Lead Paint Programs

EPA has agreed to recommendations from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) to bolster oversight of state lead-based paint (LBP) programs, by having the agency’s chemicals and enforcement offices develop guidance for regional offices on verifying that such programs continue to meet TSCA requirements. The planned guidance will also clarify roles of headquarters and regional offices. “We agree that Agency oversight of authorized state LBP programs is critical to ensure that these programs continue to meet regulatory requirements and protect...

Environmentalists Reach New Settlement In TSCA CDR Enforcement Push

Environmentalists have reached a binding legal agreement with a New York company to remedy its failures to report its chemical imports to EPA in violation of TSCA and the 2020 Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rule, the latest such announcement in part of one group’s ongoing effort to enforce this element of TSCA in the absence of EPA action. The Center for Environmental Health (CEH), a group based in Oakland, CA, announced July 14 its legally binding agreement with Wego Chemical...

Industry Urges EPA To Revise TSCA Section 8 Data Collecting Rules

Calling EPA’s recent estimate of the costs associated with complying with TSCA section 8 data reporting rules “inaccurate,” a chemical manufacturers’ group is arguing that EPA should revise such data gathering rules to make them less burdensome, in order to be consistent with President Donald Trump’s recent executive order on deregulation. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) is urging EPA to revise its section 8 data gathering rules to make them less costly and burdensome and more consistent with Trump’s order...

House GOP Advances FY26 Spending Bill With CSB, TSCA Bridge Funding

Republicans on a House appropriations panel have advanced to the full committee a funding bill for EPA and related agencies that funds the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) despite the Trump administration’s proposal to zero it out, though subcommittee Democrats opposed the bill’s 23 percent overall cut to EPA. The bill also contains funding for the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) program, including funds to bridge the time between EPA’s expenditure of funds related to chemical reviews and...

Industry Presses EPA To Estimate Costs of TSCA New Chemical Review Delays

Chemical manufacturers are calling on EPA to include the costs associated with lost business in cost estimates for TSCA new chemicals reviews and to provide more transparency about the review process, as the agency seeks to renew White House approval for receiving information for new chemicals reviews. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) wants EPA to update the cost estimates for an Information Collection Request (ICR) renewal “to better reflect the actual estimated delay cost for premanufacture notices (PMNs) and significant...

Trade Group Asks EPA To Revise NMP Evaluation Underlying Draft TSCA Rule

Manufacturers of the solvent n-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) are asking EPA to reconsider its denial of their 2023 petition to rework the TSCA risk evaluation, arguing EPA dismissed its critique without justification and reiterating their original claims that the 2020 evaluation “violates” the Information Quality Act (IQA) and TSCA’s mandate to use the “best available science.” The NMP Producers Group (NPG), which consists of BASF Corporation and Lyondell Chemical Company, quietly filed June 12 an IQA request for reconsideration (RfR) with EPA’s...

SACC Offers Broad Advice Outside Charge In 1,3-Butadiene Review

EPA science advisors’ recent peer review report on the agency’s draft evaluation of 1,3-butadiene (1,3-BD) offers a rare chapter of advice intended to broadly improve the scientific quality of TSCA risk evaluations of existing chemicals, underscoring concerns advisors have raised repeatedly in their reviews of individual evaluations. The Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC) calls the extra chapter in the June 1,3-BD report , “Essential Topics Not Posed Through Charge Questions” and “Topics Identified by the Committee as Important Considerations,”...

Court Accepts EPA Reversal On Asbestos TSCA Rule, Sets August Deadline

The 5th Circuit has accepted EPA’s withdrawal of its June request to further delay consolidated litigation over the Biden-era TSCA rule phasing out six uses of chrysotile asbestos, officially approving the agency’s stated plan to pursue guidance for regulated sectors rather than a multi-year effort to revise the rule. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit issued a July 9 order granting EPA’s July 7 motion to withdraw its June 26 request to hold the case known as...

Environmentalists Use Novel Suit To Challenge EPA’s TSCA Petition Denial

Three environmental groups are suing EPA in a federal district court over the agency’s recent denial of their petition asking EPA to ban the use of hydrogen fluoride (HF) in refineries, sparking a little-used judicial review process that could lead to a novel ruling on whether the agency should address chemical accidents or spills under reformed TSCA. Clean Air Council (CAC), Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed a July 8 complaint in the...

EPA Withdraws SNURs For 18 ‘Pyrolysis Oil’-Based PMNs At Heart Of Suit

EPA is withdrawing the TSCA significant new use rules (SNURs) that it proposed in 2023 for some 18 plastic-based ‘pyrolysis oil’ new chemical applications that were the subject of environmentalists’ legal challenge over EPA’s risk analysis, leading the Biden EPA in its final days to acknowledge error and agree to reverse the new chemicals’ approval. EPA “is withdrawing Proposed Significant New Use Rules (SNURs) released in June 2023 for 18 chemicals derived from plastic waste for use in producing products...

EPA Reverses Plan To Rewrite TSCA Asbestos Rule, Eyes Guidance Instead

The Trump EPA is reversing course on its approach to the Biden-era TSCA rule phasing out six uses of chrysotile asbestos, announcing that for now it is considering crafting guidance for regulated sectors rather than revising the rule -- a turnabout from its message just weeks ago to the 5th Circuit when it sought a further pause in litigation to rewrite the rule. “[T]he Agency has further reconsidered the challenged rule and no longer intends to conduct notice-and-comment rulemaking to...

EPA, Petitioners Advance TSCA New Chemicals ‘Framework’ Suit

EPA, environmentalists and labor groups are moving forward in ongoing litigation over the Biden-era “framework” rule updating procedures for the agency’s pre-market risk reviews of new chemicals, a rare move as the Trump administration has sought to delay multiple TSCA suits to revise the underlying rules. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued a July 3 order adopting the briefing deadlines negotiated by the parties to advance Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT) et al. v. EPA...

EPA’s Role In Workforce Protection Under TSCA Still TBD, Lawyers Say

EPA’s role in workforce regulation and enforcement under TSCA, and how it will share that role with OSHA, are still to be determined, attorneys said during a recent TSCA conference where they also predicted industry challenges to EPA’s administrative law enforcement and suggested citizen suits could shape that role. While Congress in its 2016 reforms of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) affirmed EPA’s authority to protect workers from unreasonable risks, it is still unclear what EPA’s workplace role actually...

Missed Target For TSCA ‘Framework’ Draft Raises Doubts On Other Actions

The Trump EPA has missed its self-imposed June deadline for redrafting the Biden-era “framework” rule laying out procedures for evaluating existing chemicals under TSCA, raising questions over the agency’s ability to meet many other deadlines it has promised in court filings for revising or drafting other rules and evaluations that rely on the measure. The agency has yet to release for public comment a draft of its revised version of the framework rule, which the agency’s acting chemicals chief Nancy...

Observers Debate EPA Plans To Revise TSCA Chemical Evaluations

Panelists at a recent TSCA conference offered concerns and mixed views on the Trump EPA’s plans to re-do multiple Biden-era TSCA risk management rules on existing chemicals over the next several years, noting the uncertainty such revisions bring while also pondering a more pragmatic, negotiated approach to TSCA rulemakings. Industry and environmentalist attorneys alike noted some concerns with EPA’s stated plans to revise the Biden-era TSCA risk management rules on chrysotile asbestos, methylene chloride, perchloroethylene (PCE or perc) and trichloroethylene...

Rejecting EPA’s Request, 5th Circuit Grants 90-Day Extension In 1,4-DX Suit

A 5th Circuit judge has extended by 90 days the court’s stay of a chemical company’s novel challenge to Biden-era revisions to a TSCA risk evaluation of the solvent 1,4-dioxane (1,4-DX), once again rejecting EPA’s request for a longer pause to continue the agency’s reconsideration of the evaluation and supplement. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit issued a July 1 order in Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) v. EPA granting “in part” EPA’s “unopposed motion to extend...

EPA Seeks Another Extension Of 1,4-DX Suit, Promising Faster Revisions

EPA is asking the 5th Circuit to extend its pause of novel litigation over Biden-era revisions to the TSCA evaluation of the solvent 1,4-dioxane (1,4-DX), though acting chemicals chief Nancy Beck told the court the agency may not need as long to revise the chemical’s cancer assessment as previously thought. In a June 30 motion , EPA asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to again extend its stay on Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) v. EPA...

Petitioners Spar Over TCE Rule Suit Next Steps After EPA Extends Stay

Environmentalists and labor unions are sparring with battery makers over how a federal appeals court should respond to competing requests for next steps in consolidated litigation over the Biden-era TSCA rule on trichloroethylene (TCE) after EPA moved to extend a stay of the rule’s provisions governing critical uses of TCE. United Steelworkers, United Autoworkers, Center for Environmental Health, and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) sent a June 25 letter alerting the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit to EPA’s...

Environmentalists Strongly Oppose Push For Legislative TSCA Changes

Environmentalists are steadfastly opposing industry efforts to revise the 2016 reforms to TSCA, arguing not enough time has passed to know whether additional changes are needed and that administrative tweaks could address many of industry’s concerns while also questioning whether reauthorizing the fees program is necessary. Their position makes it even less likely that Senate Democrats, who were already downplaying prospects for a deal on TSCA reform, are likely to reach an agreement with Republicans. Daniel Rosenberg, director of federal...

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