Practical EHS Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
The EPA has published preliminary lists of manufacturers (including importers) that will need to pay fees to defray the costs of risk evaluations the Agency must perform on 20 substances that have been designated high priorities under Section 6 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Each of the 20 high-priority substances has been matched […]
By a vote of 247 to 159, the House passed the PFAS Action Act of 2019 (H.R. 535). The bill would amend five environmental statutes—the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (Superfund), Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), Clean Air Act (CAA), and Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA)—by […]
The EPA has issued its final list of the first 20 high-priority chemical substances in commerce that will undergo Agency risk evaluations over the next 3 years. The risk evaluation process for existing chemicals is arguably the most consequential part of the 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
An assemblage of environmental, public health, and worker rights groups filed three challenges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit against the chemical Risk Evaluation Rule the EPA issued in July 2017 as required by the 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Petitioners also challenged aspects of the Agency’s […]
Many stakeholders are following—or should be following—the federal government’s plans to address the impact of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) on human health and the environment. There is a lot to follow. PFAS are a family of chemicals first synthesized in the 1940s. It is a very large family. According to the EPA’s February 2019 […]
The EPA is proposing to add two questions to the list of questions chemical manufacturers (which include importers) and processors must answer to substantiate claims that the identities of chemicals must be protected from public disclosure. Both questions relate to reverse engineering, defined as a process “to disassemble and examine or analyze in detail (a […]
Methylene chloride, one of the most useful solvents ever developed and also one of the most dangerous, is the subject of a recently released EPA draft risk evaluation.
In Q3, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized 158 settlement agreements with companies small and large across the United States. There was a definitive increase in enforcement actions, with only 106 penalties issued in the previous quarter. Here we highlight some of the biggest fines.
Effective August 15, 2019, the EPA will no longer notify companies that they have not met the requirements to substantiate claims that information about their chemicals provided to that Agency is entitled to confidentiality, and they have 30 days to submit complete substantiations.
The attorneys general (AGs) of 10 states and the District of Columbia have asked a federal court to order the EPA to initiate rulemaking to require manufacturers (including importers) and processors to report information about asbestos.