EPA has preliminarily determined that the widely used solvent 1,1,2-trichloroethane (1,1,2-TCA) poses an unreasonable risk to workers, which if finalized could lead to a workplace-focused TSCA risk management rule for the chemical to limit dermal and/or inhalation exposures from 10 uses of the substance.
September 16, 2026
Maria Hegstad
Maria Hegstad is managing editor of Inside EPA’s Risk Policy Report, where she has been writing about all things chemicals, risk assessment policy and toxicology since 2008. Before joining Inside EPA, Maria reported for local newspapers in Manassas, VA, and D.C., covering courts and local government. Maria is a proud native of the “other” Washington, raised in Tacoma. She earned her BA from the College of William & Mary and her MSJ from Medill.
Archived Articles
Small business representatives are preparing to offer the Trump administration advice on easing regulatory burdens under pending chemical safety rules on formaldehyde and legacy asbestos, measures that industry groups have worried will be too burdensome but workplace safety experts say are needed to protect workers.
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Chemical and other industry groups are stepping up their calls for a “single, consistent” set of workplace safety rules regarding toxic chemicals, pressing OSHA, EPA and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to revise the two agencies’ memorandum of understanding (MOU) to better align competing measures.
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Labor unions are urging EPA to maintain current compliance deadlines for workplace exposure requirements in the Biden-era TSCA rules on carbon tetrachloride (CTC or CCl4) and perchloroethylene (perc or PCE), arguing the agency’s plan to extend the deadlines until June 2027 will harm workers.
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Battery makers and other critical users of the solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) are pointing to a worker protection value in EPA’s Biden-era TSCA rule restricting most uses of the solvent to support their argument that even though the rule provided them extended phaseout timelines, the conditions are too stringent and thus violate the toxics law.
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EPA’s final TSCA risk evaluation of 1,2-dichloroethane (1,2-DCA), a key ingredient in polyvinyl chloride (PVC), finds 15 occupational uses of the chemical pose unreasonable risk that must be regulated -- potentially at levels more stringent than OSHA.
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Two labor unions have dropped their challenges to a Biden-era TSCA rule phasing out most uses of the solvent trichloroethylene (TCE), saying their concerns are better addressed through a planned rulemaking but that they will remain in the consolidated litigation as intervenors supporting the agency.
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As the Trump administration works to revise Biden-era TSCA risk management rules for carbon tetrachloride (CTC or CCl4) and perchloroethylene (perc or PCE), EPA is proposing to extend compliance deadlines for workplace exposure requirements until June 2027.
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The Trump EPA is defending a Biden-era decision to exclude requirements for chemical exposure disclosures to workers from a TSCA framework rule for conducting pre-market risk reviews of new chemicals, arguing to a federal appeals court that labor unions’ push for such disclosures is outside the scope of the rule.
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Business groups are seeking to boost the chemical industry’s legal arguments that TSCA is intended to be a “gap-filling” statute between OSHA’s authority and other environmental and public health laws, arguing in a recently filed amicus brief that the Biden-era rule phasing out most ongoing uses of chrysotile asbestos improperly shifted that balance.
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