ISSUE: Inside TSCA

Chemical Industry Weighs Congressional Options To Protect Safer Choice

Chemical industry advocates are weighing a legislative campaign to enshrine the Safer Choice program in statute as conservatives argue for privatization -- though an industry source says EPA has backed off its threats to shutter the program. Although such considerations are still in their earliest stages, the source says such a codification could happen during the 119th Congress if sponsors step up. The potential effort comes amid widespread industry concerns that EPA could close down the program. The agency has...

EPA Plans To Speed TSCA Work While Slashing Funding, Budget Says

The Trump EPA is planning to speed TSCA chemical reviews in fiscal year 2026 even as the agency is seeking to slash the program’s budget as part of the administration’s broader goal of streamlining the workforce and reducing “duplicative, voluntary, and unnecessary work,” according to EPA’s recently released budget justification. “In FY 2026 the Agency will work to reduce backlogs in the chemical review process to provide regulatory certainty to industry, furthering the Great American Comeback and unleashing the greatness...

Beck Tempers Expectations On TSCA Implementation But Touts Trump Fixes

EPA’s acting chemicals chief Nancy Beck is warning that the agency will need more time to implement the 2016 TSCA amendments and predicting “a lot more bumps in the road in the years to come,” though she is touting the Trump administration’s reorganization of EPA and efforts to speed new chemical reviews under TSCA. “We’re definitely going to need more than nine years to fully implement” the 2016 amendments, Beck said June 25 at an annual Toxic Substances Control Act...

Environmentalists Argue Court Misread TSCA In Tossing Fluorination Suit

Environmentalists are urging a federal appeals court to revive their litigation seeking to force EPA to expedite regulation of PFAS in fluorinated plastic containers under TSCA, arguing a district court’s dismissal of the case was based on an incorrect reading of the toxics law. In their June 23 opening brief , Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) argue that EPA’s then-pending data call on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in fluorinated plastic containers...

DTSC Proposes Microplastics As Candidate For Priority SCP Program Listing

California’s toxics department is proposing to add microplastics to the “candidate chemicals” list under its Safer Consumer Products (SCP) green chemistry program, which would allow officials to identify consumer products containing or generating microplastics for future evaluation and possible regulation as “priority products.” “The science is clear: microplastic pollution poses a growing threat to our environment, our health and our planet. Adding microplastics to the Candidate Chemicals List is the first step to finding safer alternatives to these substances that...

Staff Cuts, Court-Ordered Deadlines Strain EPA’s Ability To Implement TSCA

EPA’s chemicals office is straining to carry out some TSCA functions amid President Donald Trump’s staff cuts and a heavy court-mandated risk evaluation workload, and is likely to pare back many of its non-required functions, one TSCA expert says. “There are some really significant departures that are going to make EPA’s job more difficult,” Richard Engler, director of chemistry at industry law firm Bergeson & Campbell, said at a June 23 session of the Household and Commercial Products Association’s (HCPA’s)...

EPA Narrows 1,1-DCA TSCA Evaluation, Unreasonable Risk Findings

EPA has finalized its TSCA risk evaluation of the solvent-ingredient 1,1-dichloroethane (1,1-DCA), concluding that the chemical poses unreasonable risk to the health of workers in three different sectors that must be regulated, but not to the general population, other workers, or the environment -- narrowing findings from those reached in a Biden-era draft. EPA released the 1,1-DCA evaluation June 20, in accordance with a settlement agreement that directed the agency to send the final evaluation to the Federal Register...

Sources Question Significance Of Pending TSCA Methylene Chloride Ruling

Former EPA official Bob Sussman is cautioning against expectations that the 5th Circuit may take significant action on consolidated challenges to the Biden-era TSCA rule banning most uses of the common solvent methylene chloride, following oral argument where one judge strongly questioned EPA but another spoke rarely. With Circuit Judge Patrick Higginbotham speaking so little in the case, it would be too difficult to predict what the court might do from oral argument, Sussman, a top former EPA official in...

ADAO Opposes Pause In Asbestos Challenge As EPA Demurs On Enforcement

The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) is opposing EPA’s recent request to the 5th Circuit to extend its hold on consolidated litigation over the Biden-era TSCA rule phasing out most uses of chrysotile asbestos so the agency can redo the rule, amid questions over whether EPA will enforce the existing rule while re-writing it. ADAO filed a June 18 opposition brief just two days after the Justice Department filed the abeyance motion on EPA’s behalf for an additional 60-days pause...

As 9th Anniversary Approaches, TSCA Program Mired In Litigation, Rewrites

As the 9th anniversary of TSCA’s reform approaches, observers are offering a grim outlook for the once-broadly bipartisan legislative reform effort that passed Congress nearly unanimously, with few accomplishments on existing chemicals as EPA’s major rules are either mired in litigation or another round of re-writes before they are finalized. “There is a real question whether EPA has the bandwidth to re-do the five risk management rules [that the Trump administration has targeted for re-write] and still keep the whole...

EPA Extends TCE Critical Use Compliance While Seeking Longer Court Stay

EPA is extending by another 60 days compliance deadlines for TSCA restrictions on certain critical uses of the solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) while it awaits the 3rd Circuit’s ruling on its request that the court extend abeyance in consolidated litigation over the Biden-era rule banning many TCE uses and setting strict workplace exposure limits. EPA released June 18 the pre-publication version of a Federal Register notice announcing and explaining its further postponement of those Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) section...

DOD Seeks First-Time Data On Upstream TSCA Chemical ‘Critical’ Uses

The Defense Department (DOD) is seeking first-time data on critical applications that require the use of existing chemicals undergoing EPA’s TSCA section 6 risk evaluation process, seeking to head off a potential risk management rule that could restrict the use of chemicals necessary for national defense. DOD’s request for information (RFI), which is open until June 20, is likely to be the first in a series of requests as more chemicals enter the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) risk evaluation...

Small Business Group Condemns EPA’s ‘Inherent Authority’ TSCA Claims

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) is pushing back on EPA’s assertion that it has “inherent authority” to amend rules, warning in comments on the agency’s proposal to extend some compliance deadlines for the TSCA methylene chloride rule that such language overstates EPA’s authority as an executive agency. “No federal agency, including the EPA, has any ‘inherent authority’ of any kind, on any subject, at any time, ever,” NFIB executive vice president and general counsel David Addington, who argued...

EPA Plan To Rewrite TSCA Rule On Asbestos Leaves Ban’s Status Unclear

The Trump EPA’s plan to rewrite the Biden-era TSCA phaseout of the major uses of chrysotile asbestos and further delay litigation over the measure is raising questions over whether the agency will continue to enforce the existing rule as it expects it will take 30 months -- much of the administration’s remaining term -- to redo the rule. The announcement comes in an abeyance motion the Justice Department filed late June 16 on behalf of EPA, asking the U.S. Court...

SACC Seeks Major Changes To 1,3-Butadiene Evaluation’s Cancer Analysis

EPA science advisors are urging the agency to make significant revisions to the cancer risk analysis in its draft TSCA evaluation of synthetic rubber chemical 1,3-butadiene (1,3-BD), a request likely to challenge the agency, which is operating under a tight court-ordered deadline to finalize the evaluation by the end of the year. EPA’s Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC) issued late June 12 its peer review report for the 1,3-BD draft, seeking further consideration of underlying exposure data and modeling...

Environmentalists Charge Biden PBT Rule Fails To Protect As TSCA Requires

Environmentalists and other petitioners are charging that the Biden-era TSCA rule on persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemicals fails to protect their members from exposures to a flame-retardant chemical and thus fails to meet TSCA’s directive that the agency impose “all practicable measures” to reduce such exposures. Earthjustice, representing the petitioners Yurok Tribe, Alaska Community Action On Toxics, Center For Environmental Transformation, and Consumer Federation Of America, filed a June 9 opening brief in Yurok Tribe, et al. v. EPA...

House Republicans Press Zeldin For TSCA ‘Framework’ Rule Changes

A group of House Republicans is urging EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to ensure the agency’s pending revisions to the “framework” rule governing how staff evaluate existing chemicals under TSCA consider a series of specific topics, ranging from defining key terms to scoping, interagency involvement and peer review. “We are heartened by the Agency’s March 10 announcement that EPA will reexamine multiple aspects of the Biden-era 2024 Risk Evaluation Framework Rule,” a June 10 letter from 21 House Republicans, many of...

EPA Sets Summer Dates For SACC Phthalates Peer Review Meetings

EPA has set summer dates for meetings of its Scientific Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC) panel to peer review multiple draft TSCA evaluations of phthalates, the agency announced June 10. SACC will conduct a virtual peer review meeting Aug. 4-8, according to a June 10 Federal Register notice . The meeting will be preceded by a virtual July 21 preparatory meeting for advisors to discuss the “scope and clarity of the draft charge questions” EPA has prepared to guide...

ACC Petitions EPA To Scale Back Two Provisions In Biden-Era TCE Rule

Chemical manufacturers are petitioning EPA to scale back two provisions of the Biden-era TSCA rule that phases out most uses of the common solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) relating to reusing byproduct TCE at facilities and allowable discharges into water from these facilities, arguing the rule oversteps EPA’s TSCA authority in these aspects. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) filed a May 29 petition under section 21 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) asking the agency to address the two discrete issues...

Citing EPA Findings, Industry Faults DTSC’s Proposed Acids & Bases Review

Industry groups are challenging the California toxics department’s proposal to add 12 acids and bases used in personal care and cleaning products to its “candidate chemicals” list for possible regulation under the Safer Consumer Products (SCP) green chemistry program, arguing in part that EPA has approved some of the compounds as safe. The Household & Commercial Products Association (HCPA) “cautions that several of the listed chemicals are listed on EPA’s Safer Chemicals Ingredient List (SCIL), which is a list of...

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