ISSUE: Inside TSCA

EPA Launches Safer Choice Office As Group Weighs Records Suit

EPA officials have followed through on their pledge to reestablish the voluntary Safer Choice program as a separate division in the chemicals office, just as an environmental group is weighing whether to continue its suit seeking records related to that move after the agency turned over what it says are the only four relevant documents. According to a May 18 court filing , the whistleblower group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is considering whether to accept EPA’s claim that...

ATSDR Floats New Cancer Cluster Investigation Guide Mandated By TSCA

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released long-awaited draft guidelines for state, local and other authorities to review potential cancer clusters, under a statutory mandate in the reformed TSCA designed to address decade-old concerns that regulators would often sideline communities’ warnings of high disease numbers. CDC published the proposed update to the Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry’s (ATSDR) 2013 cancer cluster evaluation guidelines for state, local and tribal health departments on May 25, with seven “notable...

Researchers Eye ‘Baseline’ For Advanced Tests On Data-Poor PFAS

Scientists are touting a recent study of the impacts of certain per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) on human liver cells as creating a “baseline” dataset and data analysis that future studies can rely on to assess health effects and potency of less-studied members of the class, offering a possible avenue to speed what are now lengthy reviews. During a May 24 Society of Toxicology webinar on research into PFAS as human carcinogens, Health Canada scientist Ella Atlas said a paper...

EPA’s PFAS Spend Plan Emphasizes TSCA Rules, Plastic Leaching

EPA’s spending plan for fiscal year 2022 outlines plans to expand the scope of the chemical and research offices’ work on per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), including an array of rules limiting their use under TSCA new-chemicals authority and new studies on how the chemicals leach into pesticides from fluorinated plastic containers. The so-called PFAS spend plan , which EPA sent to Congress last week, details how officials plan to use the agency’s increased FY22 appropriations to address PFAS, with several...

EPA Extends Asbestos Comment Deadline To July

EPA is pushing back the comment deadline on its proposed TSCA rule to ban several uses of chrysotile asbestos by 30 days, following requests from industry and a public health group for more time to weigh complex legal, economic and scientific questions underlying the proposal, especially its impacts on drinking water treatment. The agency announced in a Federal Register notice scheduled for publication May 25 that it will extend from June 13 to July 13 the public comment deadline...

PFAS Fears Drive Groups’ Clash Over EPA Asbestos Ban In Chlorine Sector

Some environmentalists’ recent call for EPA to expand its TSCA rule banning chrysotile asbestos uses to also bar chlor-alkali makers from using perfluorinated substances as an alternative sparked a clash with groups who see such arguments as a hurdle to asbestos limits, underlining the delicate balance supporters of the rule hope to strike. The Center for Environmental Health (CEH) issued a May 3 report on environmental and climate hazards tied to polyvinyl chloride (PVC) flooring that urged the agency to...

Colorado Poised To Enact Landmark PFAS Bill After Key Limits Dropped

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) is poised to sign a landmark bipartisan bill that supporters say will enact one of the broadest state-level prohibitions on the sale of consumer and other products containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), after intense negotiations with industry and others led supporters to drop some more-expansive provisions. “It’s not what we had hoped for, but it’s an important first step,” says a source involved in the negotiations who supports broader consumer protections. Others say the...

California Formally Proposes Listing Tire Chemical As SCP Program ‘Priority’

Update Appended California officials are formally proposing to list tires containing the anti-cracking chemical 6PPD as a “priority product” under the state’s Safer Consumer Products (SCP) green chemistry program, touting the move as a first step to address the “national issue” of runoff that has led to fish kills. “The recent research linking 6PPD to coho salmon deaths is extremely compelling,” said California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) Director Meredith Williams in a May 23 press release. “It is...

FDA Eyes New Phthalate Reviews, Teeing Up Questions For TSCA Process

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is seeking data on phthalate uses and exposures through food manufacturing and packaging to inform a “review” of safe exposure levels, just as EPA is conducting its own TSCA risk evaluations for two of the same chemicals, setting up new questions on how the agencies’ findings will align. On May 19, FDA formally denied two 2016 petitions from environmental groups that sought a rule banning eight phthalates in food contact substances but it simultaneously...

Study Finds Increasing Chemical Exposures For Pregnant Women

A new study touted as the largest biomonitoring project to date, targeting over 100 chemicals in American pregnant women, identified more than one-third of those substances in urine samples from a majority of the subjects, often at levels higher than previously known -- results they say correspond to recent regulations and resulting shifts in industry practice. Researchers at the University of California San Francisco’s Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE) and Johns Hopkins University’s public health school analyzed...

Experts Say ‘Circular Economy’ Goals Will Carry New TSCA Burdens

Legal experts are urging industry to keep a close eye on TSCA mandates as they move toward a “circular economy” where waste materials are reused as feedstock rather than disposed, noting that the law often treats such methods as new chemical uses requiring fresh approval by EPA -- already a persistent hurdle for biofuels. During a May 18 webinar on the role of chemical regulations in a circular economy hosted by the law firm Bergeson & Campbell (B&C), several speakers...

Advisors Say Draft TSCA Fenceline Model ‘Not Adequate,’ Urge Expansion

EPA’s science advisors say the screening method the TSCA office is using to identify existing substances’ risks to fenceline communities is “not adequate” for many populations such as tribes and subsistence fishers and are urging the agency to broaden the model to consider more exposures, while questioning the data used to develop it. “The Committee agreed that Version 1 of the screening tool for fenceline communities is currently not adequate for evaluating potential exposures relevant to tribes, indigenous populations, subsistence...

Panel Lauds IRIS’ PFAS Assessment But Doubts Chemical-Specific Approach

The panel peer-reviewing EPA’s draft assessment of a per- and polyfluorinated substance (PFAS) known as PFHxA is praising many aspects of the document, including the agency’s decision not to rely on limited human-health studies, but some are questioning its overall strategy of assessing individual chemicals in the broad PFAS class separately. The number of known PFAS is “mind-boggling,” said one of the reviewers, Panagiotis Georgopoulos, a professor of environmental health at Rutgers’ public health school, during the panel’s May 16-17...

Democrats Float Asbestos Ban Bill Stricter Than Failed 2019 Legislation

Democrats have introduced their latest bill seeking to ban all uses of asbestos, but its prospects appear uncertain at best as it is even stricter than a 2019 version that collapsed without a vote, including a phaseout schedule mirroring EPA’s proposed TSCA rule that industry opposes and a definition of commercial “asbestos” similar to what has divided supporters of past legislation. On May 18, Sen. Jeff Merkley (OR) and Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (OR) introduced the newest version of the Alan...

House Panel Approves Amended PFAS Research Bill On Bipartisan Vote

A House panel has easily approved an amended version of legislation mandating new research on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) by EPA and other agencies, after revising the bill to cover mixtures as well as individual chemicals while also striking a mandate to consider a class-based approach opposed by industry. The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, approved the amended H.R. 7289 by voice vote after a May 17 markup, with no audible opposition. The action marks the chamber’s...

Top House Republican Questions TSCA Budget Hike Despite Industry Backing

Even as industry groups back EPA’s request for a massive TSCA budget hike in fiscal year 2023, the top Republican on the House committee overseeing the agency appears to doubt officials’ request and argued instead that the toxics office has become less efficient under the Biden administration and must adopt reforms. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), ranking member on the House Energy & Commerce Committee, used the panel’s May 17 hearing on EPA’s FY23 request to question Administrator Michael Regan...

Groups Float Early Critiques Of Asbestos Proposal But Seek More Time

Industry and health groups are raising initial criticism of EPA’s proposed TSCA rule to ban ongoing uses of chrysotile asbestos, even as both sides seek an extension of the comment deadline to grapple with what they say are complex legal, economic and scientific questions underlying the proposal, especially its impacts on drinking water treatment. While comments on the April 5 proposed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) asbestos rule are not slated to close until June 13, both the Asbestos Disease...

Industry Urges CPSC To Weigh New Data Before Finalizing Phthalate Ban

The chemical sector is asking the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to drop a 2017 rule banning five phthalates in toy sales, following a judicial remand over procedural flaws in the rulemaking, arguing that more recent science shows lower risks from one of the chemicals that is also under TSCA evaluation. While Congress first banned the widely-used plasticizer diisononyl phthalate (DINP) in toys and some other products in a 2008 “interim” legislative measure -- and CPSC made that policy permanent...

EPA Releases 2020 CDR Data, Blaming Delay On Budget Shortfall

EPA has released its latest compilation of data on chemical production and use submitted in the 2020 Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) cycle, including what it says are details that were previously shielded by TSCA trade secret requirements, while pointing to the TSCA program’s limited resources to explain why it took over a year to release the report. “Longstanding resource shortfalls in the [Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)] program have limited EPA’s ability to put the necessary IT infrastructure in place...

EPA Plan To ‘Modernize’ New Chemicals Reviews Underlines Split On NAMs

EPA’s draft agenda for overhauling its TSCA assessments of new chemicals is sparking a new clash on plans to make new approach methodologies (NAMs) a larger part of that process, with industry supporting it while environmental groups urge against cuts to animal tests they see as more reliable than the alternatives. In comments filed ahead of the May 10 deadline for input on EPA’s draft research agenda for Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) assessments of new chemicals, industry groups and...

Pages

Not a subscriber? Request 30 days free access to exclusive environmental policy reporting.