Risk Evaluations - TSCA

Draft TSCA D4 Evaluation Finds Risk To Workers, Seeks More Release Data

EPA’s draft TSCA risk evaluation of the siloxane known as D4 preliminarily finds that 23 uses of the chemical pose unreasonable risk to workers, the statute’s trigger for risk management rule making, but EPA also says it needs additional data to make preliminary conclusions for 18 other uses of D4 included in the evaluation’s scope. The agency Sept. 17 released its draft Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) risk evaluation of octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4), a substance used in the production of silicone...

EPA Prepares For Peer Review Of Manufacturer-Requested D4 Evaluation

EPA is seeking scientists to serve on a panel to peer review the draft TSCA evaluation of the siloxane known as D4, one of a handful of evaluations the agency agreed to complete in response to a manufacturer request, even as officials struggle to comply with a Biden-era consent decree that set steep deadlines for completing a series of other evaluations. EPA announced Sept. 10 that it “is seeking nominations of scientific and technical experts to be considered as ad...

Group Withdraws Petition Asking EPA To Re-Write TSCA ‘Framework’ Rule

A Texas non-profit has withdrawn its petition asking EPA to re-write the Biden-era “framework” rule governing the agency’s TSCA evaluations of existing chemicals following the Trump EPA’s recent transmission of a proposed revision of the rule for White House review, although it is unclear whether EPA’s action is the cause of the petition withdrawal. The Center for Environmental Accountability (CEA), a non-profit run by a former Justice Department (DOJ) attorney who is now a law professor at the University of...

SACC Offers Mixed Feedback On EPA’s Phthalate Cumulative Risk Effort

Members of EPA’s Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC) are commending EPA for some of the steps it has taken in its novel effort to evaluate the cumulative risks of phthalates under TSCA, but they are also raising concerns that the agency’s approach both underestimates and overestimates risks, as stakeholders have said. Their comments came during an Aug. 4-8 meeting to review EPA’s Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) draft risk evaluations for dibutyl phthalate (DBP), dicyclohexyl phthalate (DCHP) and di(2-ethylhexyl)...

Environmentalists, Industry Attack TSCA Cumulative Phthalates Assessment

Environmentalists and industry groups are criticizing EPA’s novel approach to analyzing the cumulative risk of phthalates, alleging that methodological deficiencies in documents currently undergoing peer review resulted in assessments that either understand or overstated risk. During an Aug. 4 meeting of the agency’s Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC), representatives from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the Program for Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE) at the University of California San Francisco argued that EPA used too-low exposure data...

Academics, Scientists Question Draft TSCA Phthalates Risk Evaluations

A group of scientists and academics are questioning the soundness of a set of draft TSCA documents evaluating the risk of several phthalates that an EPA advisory committee will peer review next week, arguing the agency rejected hundreds of studies from its analyses and used approaches that appear to underestimate the chemicals’ risks to human health. For all of the phthalates it reviewed, “EPA used an outdated and flawed systematic review methodology and excluded studies without scientific justification,” Rashmi Joglekar,...

EPA Draft Evaluations For DIBP, BPP Find Some Unreasonable Risks

EPA has released draft TSCA risk evaluations for phthalates known as DIBP and BPP that find the chemicals present some unreasonable risk of injury to human health based on exposure to workers as well as unreasonable risks to the environment from some conditions of use (COUs) -- TSCA’s trigger to develop risk management rules. The evaluations of di-isobutyl phthalate (DIBP) and butyl benzyl phthalate (BBP) are two in a package of six phthalate risk evaluations EPA is conducting under the...

Animal Welfare Groups Press EPA, Other Agencies For Further NAMs Use

Animal welfare groups are pressing EPA and other federal agencies to bolster efforts to develop and advance regulatory uses of new approach methods (NAMs) for testing chemicals and drugs, urging them to create more guidance and update research plans and lists of accepted methods to reduce the agencies’ use of animal toxicology testing. The Physicians’ Committee on Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is reiterating its call to the Trump EPA to reinstate a directive to bar its use of most animal testing...

Beck Criticism Of TSCA Deadlines Raises Questions Over Renegotiation

A top Trump EPA chemicals official is expressing repeated concerns about the “very aggressive deadlines” Biden officials negotiated in legal settlements last fall regarding a score of TSCA evaluations that were years beyond their statutory schedules, raising the possibility the agency may seek additional delays to the court-ordered schedule. In a series of recent public remarks, Nancy Beck, the principal deputy assistant administrator in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP), has criticized the settlement agreements, noting that...

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,”...

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...

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...

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...

EPA Drafts Find Two Phthalates Pose Multiple Risks Requiring TSCA Rules

EPA has released two more draft TSCA risk evaluations, for the phthalates dibutyl phthalate (DBP) and diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), preliminarily finding multiple uses of the plasticizer chemicals pose unreasonable risk to human health and the environment that if finalized, will require risk management rulemaking. The agency released the documents June 4 for public comment, in accordance with a recent court-ordered deadline for the drafts’ release, according to a June 5 Federal Register notice . EPA will accept comments on...

EPA ‘Evaluating’ Biden-Era TSCA Prioritization, Candidate Designations

EPA is “evaluating” the Biden-era designations of five chemicals as high priority for TSCA evaluation and another group of five chemicals as candidates for prioritization, a spokesperson says, a move that counters some attorneys’ view that TSCA may not provide EPA such discretion once it has finalized prioritization. Asked whether EPA is reconsidering the five chemicals the Biden EPA announced as prioritization candidates in December 2024 and whether it has latitude to reconsider the five chemicals EPA prioritized for evaluation...

CSB Renews Call For EPA To Evaluate Hydrogen Fluoride Under TSCA

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is renewing its repeated calls for EPA to evaluate hydrogen fluoride (HF), a widely used but highly toxic catalyst, in the TSCA program, just days after the Trump administration rejected a petition from environmentalists to prioritize the substance for evaluation. CSB released May 27 its final report into “three serious chemical incidents involving toxic hydrogen fluoride (HF) at the Honeywell Performance Materials and Technologies facility in Geismar, LA. The incidents occurred...

Academics Seek ‘Extensive Revisions’ To Draft TSCA DCHP Evaluation

A group of academic scientists is blasting EPA’s draft TSCA evaluation of dicyclohexyl phthalate (DCHP), a plasticizer chemical, arguing that the draft evaluation makes unscientific assumptions that underestimate the chemical’s risks to human health and, as such, requires extensive revision. “In the DCHP Draft Risk Evaluation, EPA has failed to incorporate the best available science and makes a number of scientifically-unsupported assumptions,” state May 9 comments from a score of scientists associated with the Program on Reproductive Health and the...

Future Of Novel New ORD Chemical Tool In Doubt Amid BOSC Uncertainty

The future of a promising new assessment product from EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) -- whose acting chief predicted it “could nearly triple” the number of chemicals for which EPA has risk values -- is in doubt, its peer review stalled by uncertainty over the future of an advisory committee that may never meet again. A subpanel of EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC) met Jan. 16-17 , just days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration, to begin their...

EPA Delays, Limits Phthalates Draft TSCA Evaluations’ Peer Review

The Trump EPA is pushing back until August pending peer review of multiple TSCA phthalate evaluation analyses, while also confirming that review will cover fewer types of phthalates than the Biden administration had targeted for review, as the agency works to meet court-ordered deadlines to finalize the evaluations. EPA announced April 30 that it is seeking public comments on a slate of candidate peer reviewers for “a virtual public meeting [to be held] in August 2025. EPA will announce the...

Pages

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