Outlook 2022 - TSCA

EPA Prepares Blitz Of TSCA Actions Despite Office’s Resource Crunch

EPA’s TSCA program is preparing a long list of chemical risk evaluations, risk management rules and other policy actions for 2022, many under tight statutory deadlines, even as the agency’s chemicals chief has acknowledged the office is underfunded and understaffed. “The workload is ambitious, and it is coming out with simultaneous messaging from the assistant administrator that they don’t have the resources to do the work. It will be difficult to get it all accomplished in 2022,” Charlotte Bertrand, a...

EPA Poised For IRIS Push After Decade Of Uncertainty But Hurdles Remain

EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) office appears poised for a comeback in 2022, as a reform effort that began in 2011 nears the finish line and officials have reversed Trump-era changes seen as sidelining its work, but it remains unclear whether the program can increase its output and how broad its re-energized agenda will be. 2021 brought a cascade of good news to the beleaguered IRIS program, starting with release of a long-awaited update to the “handbook” that sets...

EPA Readies Key Risk Guides To Drive EJ Agenda But Faces Steep Hurdles

EPA is slated to issue landmark guidance in 2022 for assessing cumulative risks and disparate impacts, measures that will finally lay down markers for risk assessors and regulators to assess multiple exposures on vulnerable groups when issuing permits and making other decisions that have historically been limited to consideration of direct effects. The first of the two documents slated for release is Guidelines for Cumulative Risk Assessment Planning and Problem Formation, which will analyze cumulative risks from overlapping chemical exposures...

Slew Of EPA PFAS Actions Set For 2022 Despite Roadmap’s Mixed Reception

EPA is poised to tighten its controls on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) throughout 2022, including long-awaited proposed drinking water standards alongside a slate of Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) rules it announced in its “roadmap” for the chemicals – despite criticism of the plan from across the political spectrum. By year’s end, the agency is slated to propose drinking water limits on the two most well-known PFAS, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), with a separate rule to...

States Set To Implement Array Of PFAS Limits, Deepening Patchwork

A host of state governments are preparing new restrictions on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), under a wave of recently enacted laws and regulations that require phasing out the chemicals as soon as this year, drawing praise from environmentalists even as industry is warning of gridlock from a snarl of inconsistent laws. Even though EPA has so far refused to use the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to restrict use of existing PFAS in commercial products or industrial processes, states...

PFAS Values May Drive Strict Policies But EPA Faces Complicated Effects

EPA’s conservative draft risk values for the two best characterized per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), currently undergoing scientific review, are expected to eventually drive strict new drinking water standards and policies across a range of other media, though industry attorneys caution that regulators may not be prepared for potential effects. While the attorneys say they do not expect EPA’s draft revised oral reference doses (RfDs) for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) -- which are orders of magnitude lower...

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