Toxics

EPA efforts to expand toxic chemical regulations and reform its risk-assessment process, as well as the debate over revising the Toxic Substances Control Act, are just some of the topics featured in our Toxics section.

Topic Subtitle
EPA efforts to expand toxic chemical regulations and reform its risk-assessment process, as well as the debate over revising the Toxic Substances Control Act, are just some of the topics featured in our Toxics section.

EPA Seeks To Preempt California’s Glyphosate Warnings As Suit Nears

EPA is issuing guidance to companies that sell products containing the herbicide glyphosate to avoid and remove any labeling that says glyphosate causes cancer, in direct conflict with California Proposition 65 warning requirements for the chemical compound that have been temporarily set aside by a federal district court. The agency’s move, which opens a new front in the already wide-ranging policy battle between the Trump administration and California, appears to bolster an industry challenge to the state’s warning requirements just...

Dropping Appeal, CSB Prepares To Issue Chemical Accident Reporting Rule

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is dropping its appeal of a federal district court’s order for the board to issue by February a final rule requiring accidental release reporting from chemical facilities, reaffirming the board’s plan released this spring to comply with the order’s timeline. The move is a win for environmentalists and labor groups who had sued to set a legally enforceable deadline for the rule as a way to offset the Trump administration’s expected...

EPA decision preserving chlorpyrifos uses draws suits

Farmworker and environmental groups, along with Democratic attorneys general, are suing EPA over its decision to preserve the remaining allowed uses of the common agricultural pesticide chlorpyrifos after the agency last month denied the groups’ objections to EPA’s denial of their 2017 petition seeking to ban the chemical. The groups filed an Aug. 7 petition for review , in the U.S. Court of Appeals for 9th Circuit, challenging the agency’s rejection of their objections to its 2017 denial of their...

Top EPA Waste Official Commits To Final RMP Rollback Rule Before 2020

AUSTIN, TX -- A top EPA waste official is vowing that the agency will soon send for White House pre-publication review its final rule to undo Obama-era changes that tightened facility safety risk management plan (RMP) requirements, a surprise move refuting environmentalists’ suggestions that the rollback was “dead in the water." EPA Office of Land and Emergency Management (OLEM) Deputy Assistant Administrator Steven Cook said in Aug. 2 remarks to the Texas Environmental Superconference here that EPA intends “to go...

EPA Might Face TSCA Suit Over Worker Protections After Modifying SNUR

EPA is facing a possible suit from environmentalists after the agency rejected claims that a modified Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) significant new use rule (SNUR) for use of a specific chemical lacks adequate protections for oilfield workers that are exposed to the substance and any formaldehyde that may be associated with it. In a July 30 Federal Register notice , the agency finalized its Feb. 8, 2018, proposal to modify the SNUR for the substance known as Oxazolidine,...

EPA plans focus groups for input on TSCA chemical risk reviews

EPA is planning to launch focus groups and conduct other survey methods as a way to gather input on its evaluation and regulation of existing chemicals under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), according to an agency request for comment on a proposed information collection request (ICR) that it plans to submit to the White House. The ICR, “TSCA Existing Chemical Risk Evaluation and Management; Generic ICR for Interview and Focus Groups,” would outline how EPA will collect the...

Environmentalists Fault EPA’s TSCA Assumptions On Workers’ Use Of PPE

Environmentalists are strongly criticizing EPA’s risk evaluations for a common solvent and a largely phased-out flame retardant for what they say is a gross understatement of the risks that workers face from exposure to the chemicals, in part because the agency assumes workers will use protective equipment. They are also criticizing the evaluations for downplaying risks to the environment and for failing to fully consider the exposure risks to the general public. EPA’s findings in draft Toxic Substances Control Act...

Industry Cites New Study In Push To Weaken EPA 1,4-Dioxane Risk Findings

The chemical industry is pointing to a pending study it sponsored to bolster its argument that EPA erred in a draft toxics law evaluation of the solvent 1,4-dioxane when it concluded there is no safe exposure threshold below which the substance causes cancer, signaling plans to challenge future agency efforts to regulate uses of the chemical. Stephen Risotto, senior director of the American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) 1,4-Dioxane Panel, told EPA in recently submitted written comments and in a July 29...

Environmentalists sue EPA over lead dust rule

As expected, environmental and community groups are suing EPA over its final lead dust rule, arguing the regulation fails to set protective lead hazard standards for older housing or child-occupied facilities such as daycares. “Trump’s EPA had a chance to follow mainstream science and correctly update these standards for children’s sake,” said Eve Gartner, an attorney for Earthjustice, which is representing the petitioners. “Instead it botched the opportunity and gave families a rule that falls far short of protecting children."...

EPW Democrats query Wheeler on order to slash advisory panels

Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) are asking EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to explain how the agency plans to implement President Donald Trump’s executive order requiring the elimination of at least one-third of federal advisory committees and limiting the creation of new panels. “With the Order’s mandate to eliminate some of EPA’s advisory committees entirely, we are concerned that such actions would jeopardize human health and the environment by further limiting the role of science in...

Filling EPA Gap, California Targets 1,4-Dioxane In Consumer Products

California regulators are considering restrictions or a potential ban on 1,4-dioxane in personal care and cleaning products under the state’s green chemistry program, primarily to reduce amounts of the likely human carcinogen in water supplies, filling a gap left by the Trump EPA’s plan precluding such limits from its pending toxics rules. The effort by the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) under its Safer Consumer Products (SCP) program is being welcomed by California water treatment agencies that are responsible...

Trump-Appointed Advisers Back EPA Bid To Ease Strict Cancer Risk Method

Trump administration appointees to EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) are bolstering agency efforts to scale back use of a conservative risk assessment method that assumes no safe level of exposure to certain carcinogens, clearing the way for a less-strict approach that could help justify eased rules for industrial chemicals and nuclear radiation. In a report posted to SAB’s website earlier this month, several of the board’s members who were appointed during the Trump administration generally urged the agency to...

Democratic AGs Urge Congress To Act On PFAS But Omit Key Proposals

Nearly two dozen Democratic attorneys general (AGs) are urging Congress to approve a series of plans to regulate per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in pending House and Senate defense bills, but the officials omitted calls for lawmakers to approve several contested measures, including plans to require EPA to craft water rules, highlighting the difficulty they face as they seek to resolve their differences. In a July 30 letter to lawmakers, AGs from 22 states, districts and territories urge lawmakers to...

July 30 Letter

Testimony Of Erik Olson


EPA Backs Industry Call To Revise Coal Ash Rule’s Approach To Waste Reuse

EPA is proposing to rework how its Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) coal ash rule handles reuse of the waste, backing industry requests to scrap the current numeric approach and imposing instead a mandate to “control releases” that environmentalists say amounts to an exemption from regulation for structural fills and other activites. The agency on July 30 released a new RCRA proposal largely focused on changing how the rule treats uncontained “piles” of ash being prepared for either reuse...

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