ISSUE: Inside TSCA

EPA Publishes TSCA Asbestos Plan, Starting Public Comment Period

EPA will publish its proposed TSCA rule banning chrysotile asbestos in the April 12 Federal Register , starting a 60-day clock for public comments as the agency works to finalize the landmark policy by November. The Register publication will come a week after EPA unveiled the proposed rule on April 5, and means absent an extension public comments will be due June 11. As proposed, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) rule would give chemical makers two years to...

EPA Targets ‘End Of FY23’ For Long-Delayed Rule To Raise TSCA Fees

EPA’s congressional justification for its fiscal year 2023 budget request includes the agency’s first public target for finalizing its long-awaited rule overhauling -- and likely raising dramatically -- its TSCA user fees, saying it plans to enact the rule change “toward the end of FY2023” following a supplemental proposal in the coming months. Moreover, the budget document hints that the revised proposal will seek to drastically increase the fee amounts, as it notes that so far EPA has collected enough...

EPA Proposes Early ’23 Deadline For ‘Final Action’ On TRI Listing For DINP

EPA is proposing a settlement with environmentalists that would have it re-propose and finalize a decades-old plan to list diisononyl phthalate (DINP), a widely used chemical, on the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) by Jan. 31, 2023, teeing up new reporting mandates that proponents say will aid the agency’s ongoing TSCA evaluation of DINP’s risks. The draft settlement , which EPA released April 8 for a 30-day comment period, would resolve a suit filed in 2021 alleging that EPA’s failure to...

EPA Readies TSCA CBI Rule ‘Soon’ As Industry Seeks Clarity On Deadlines

EPA staff say the agency plans to propose “soon” a new rule outlining changes in how it deals with confidential business information (CBI) claims under TSCA after it cleared White House review last week, as industry is pressing for an answer to what they say is long-standing confusion over the law’s 10-year “sunset” timeline for confidential data. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) finished its review of the CBI rule on April 4, according to its website , opening...

SAB Seeks Peer Reviewers For IRIS Chloroform Assessment

EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) has put out a call for nominees to peer review the agency’s draft Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment of chloroform -- which has emerged as a test of a novel probabilistic approach staff at the program have used to develop risk estimates for non-cancer health dangers. In a notice slated to appear in the April 8 Federal Register , SAB is opening a 21-day comment period for nominees to an ad hoc subcommittee...

‘Data-Poor’ TSCA Office Wrestles With Reporting, Testing Infrastructure

Staffers at EPA’s TSCA office say the new-chemicals program is “a data-poor environment” and are urging firms to provide better and more complete information on chemical hazards, even as other officials at the same event agree that problems with electronic reporting tools have made such submissions more difficult and promise improvements. During a “pre-conference workshop” hosted by GlobalChem on April 5, ahead of the larger conference starting April 11, Jeffrey Gallagher, an environmental toxicologist and team lead at EPA’s Toxic...

Proposed TSCA Asbestos Ban Draws Calls For Broader Legislation

Environmentalists and congressional Democrats are casting EPA’s landmark TSCA proposal to ban all uses of chrysotile asbestos as a first step toward even broader restrictions that would cover all six types of the material, as lawmakers continue to work on legislation to implement such policies that could move later this year. “We must take a more comprehensive approach to protect Americans from all forms of these toxic chemicals,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) said in a statement. EPA proposed the asbestos...

OSTP Seeks Clear ‘Sustainable Chemistry’ Definition To Aid New Program

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is seeking public input on what it says would be a novel consensus definition for “sustainable chemistry,” including the difference between that practice and “green chemistry,” to guide its implementation of a new law establishing a federal sustainable-chemicals program. In an April 4 request for information , OSTP asks stakeholders to weigh in on both the precise definition of sustainable chemistry and how -- if at all -- it differs...

Former OPPT Director Rejoins EPA As TSCA Chemical Assessment Chief

Former EPA Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) director Jeff Morris quietly rejoined the TSCA program in February as director of its Existing Chemicals Risk Assessment Division, the agency confirmed to Inside TSCA this week, just as another longtime career official is returning to the agency as OPPT’s new director. Morris retired from OPPT’s top job in December 2019 after a 30-year career at the agency. In his new role, he will oversee Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)...

California Adds PFAS Treatments For Textiles, Leather Goods To SCP Roster

California has formally added per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substance (PFAS)-based treatments for textiles and leather products to its Safer Chemical Products (SCP) green chemistry program, subjecting treatment manufacturers to reporting and other mandates while opening the door to possibly ending the sale of such products in a future rule. The state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) announced April 1 that it had finalized a regulation to list “Treatments Containing Perfluoroalkyl or Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFASs) for Use on Converted Textiles or...

EPA Proposes Chrysotile Asbestos Ban In Landmark Step Under TSCA

EPA is proposing to ban all ongoing uses of chrysotile asbestos, including the substance’s role as a key component in some chlorine manufacturing, marking not only a major new regulatory action in its own right but the agency’s first rulemaking based on a chemical risk evaluation under the 2016 TSCA reforms. If finalized, the April 5 proposal would give chemical makers two years to phase out asbestos from sheet gaskets and chlorine production, while a shorter 180-day deadline would apply...

PEER Sues EPA Over Records On PFAS-Contaminated Plastics

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is suing EPA to force release of documents related to the agency’s investigation of per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination in fluorinated high-density polyethylene (HDPE) containers, just weeks after officials warned that such contamination may violate TSCA. In a complaint filed March 30 with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, PEER says that it is still waiting for EPA to address a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed in October, and...

EPA Taps Agency Veteran Keehner As OPPT Head After Year-Long Vacancy

EPA has named Denise Keehner, a veteran manager in the chemicals and water offices who retired from the agency almost a decade ago, to lead the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) almost a year after the prior director’s departure and as the office has struggled to implement TSCA in the face of deep budget and staffing shortfalls. Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) chief Michal Freedhoff announced the hiring in a March 31 staff memo ,...

EPA Poised To Release Landmark Asbestos Plan After OMB Ends Review

EPA will soon release its draft rule to manage risks from chrysotile asbestos, its first such TSCA regulatory proposal based on one of the 10 Trump-era chemical risk evaluations, after the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) completed its review late last week. According to its website, OMB approved the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) asbestos proposal on April 1 -- which fits EPA’s self-imposed deadline of proposing the rule this month and finalizing it in November. Once...

Industry Warns EPA Against Risk Screenings Using Trump-Era Evaluations

Industry groups are warning EPA not to regulate the chemical n-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) or screen it for additional risks based on a Trump-era TSCA evaluation, saying the agency must first update that document using its reworked model for systematic review-- an argument that could support challenges to any of its upcoming rules. In a recently unveiled comment letter on EPA’s draft approach for screening Trump-era evaluations for risks to fenceline communities, the NMP Producers Group argues that screening or regulating that...

Study Of Competing PFAS Definitions Sees EPA’s TSCA Test As Narrow

A new study of competing definitions for the class of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), including the one used by EPA’s TSCA office and a broader version favored by House lawmakers, warns that the TSCA definition could be overly narrow while “ambiguities” in broader alternatives could make them less accurate. As such, the study’s authors ultimately conclude that defining PFAS for regulatory or other purposes “may depend on the mandate of the group using the definition and its purpose.” And...

EPA Faces Renewed Calls To Apply TSCA ‘Natural’ Exemption To Biofuels

An industry attorney is pressing EPA to step up its efforts to accelerate TSCA reviews of new biofuels by addressing the sector’s long-standing argument that the agency is “unnecessarily” subjecting them to the pre-manufacture notice (PMN) process through a too-narrow reading of the law’s exemption for “natural” substances. “Notwithstanding EPA’s best efforts, its willingness to streamline [the PMN review process], I suspect that it will still be the case that many biofuels will be considered new chemicals and will have...

Environmentalists Press FDA To Limit PFAS In Packaging Despite Phaseouts

Environmental Working Group (EWG) is renewing its calls for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to restrict per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in food packaging following a recent study that found the chemicals in products from many fast food chains, including some that had already pledged to stop using them. “The law requires the FDA to take action to restrict PFAS in food packaging, unless manufacturers can show a reasonable certainty of no harm,” EWG legislative attorney Melanie Benesh said...

EPA Releases Long-Sought Waiver Guide For TSCA Formaldehyde Rule

Following years of pressure from industry, EPA has released guidance for makers of laminate wood products to win exemptions from the 2016 TSCA rule governing formaldehyde emissions from composite wood, including a warning to submit petitions “as soon as possible” to allow for a full review before the 2024 compliance deadline. The March 31 guidance outlines for the first time what materials laminate manufacturers should include in their petitions for exemption from the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and when...

New PCE Study Finds Neurological Risk 100 Times TSCA Cancer Estimate

Correction Appended A Yale researcher says a yet-unpublished analysis of neurocognitive impacts from the solvent perchloroethylene (PCE or perc) crafted by state-government and academic risk assessors shows a risk level 100 times that of the cancer effects that drove EPA’s TSCA evaluation of the chemical, which is the basis for its upcoming risk-management rule. “Normally, we think of cancer risk driving a PCE-type risk assessment where there’s non-cancer and cancer effects, normally the cancer drives,” Gary Ginsberg, a professor...

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