The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has completed its review of EPA’s draft TSCA risk management rule for the solvent methylene chloride, teeing up formal release of a proposal that a top official has said will signal how the agency plans to regulate other substances and tailor chemical-safety rules to protect workers from occupational exposures.
November 15, 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
EPA is opening a new public comment period for its proposed rule that would ban ongoing uses of chrysotile asbestos, saying industry and environmental groups have submitted a wave of new data on whether a two-year phase-out for chlor-alkali facilities is practicable and protective of workers, and asking stakeholders to weigh in on that evidence.
Date:
EPA says its draft risk assessment of formaldehyde will be a model for reforms to the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program, even as employers continue to question its finding that studies of exposed workers show inhaling the chemical can cause leukemia and accuse the agency of misleading peer reviewers on its methods.
Date:
Environmental groups used a flurry of recent meetings with the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to renew their calls for a strict rule banning all use of the solvent methylene chloride, highlighting research they say shows both its acute toxicity and ongoing worker deaths even under OSHA’s current safety standards.
Date:
EPA has submitted its TSCA proposal to regulate use of the solvent methylene chloride to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), setting the stage for what a top toxics official said will be a model for future chemical rules designed to protected both workers and the general public from chemical exposures.
Date:
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) is escalating its attacks on the peer review of EPA’s draft Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) formaldehyde assessment, arguing that “deficiencies” in the review committee’s first public meeting were “inconsistent” with federal law governing advisory panels.
Date:
EPA is asking the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for advice on whether and how to incorporate controversial analyses linking formaldehyde exposure to leukemia into its risk assessment of the ubiquitous chemical -- a decision one agency scientist said could increase the draft cancer estimate by a factor of four, prompting far stricter worker protections.
Date:
EPA’s draft changes to TSCA risk findings for the solvent carbon tetrachloride (CCl4 or CTC) have drawn renewed calls from industry to narrow its conclusions on the chemical’s risks to workers, in light of both a long-pending petition alleging flaws in the agency’s analyses and the recent Senate vote to phase out climate-warming hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in favor of substitutes made with CCl4.
Date:
The American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) has scheduled a series of workshops that will seek in part to address industry concerns over differences in how EPA’s occupational risk analyses under TSCA differ from practices at agencies like OSHA or the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and those of industrial hygienists.
Date:
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has provisionally selected the panel that will peer review the Biden administration’s draft assessment of the risks of workplace and other exposures to formaldehyde, despite calls from GOP lawmakers who had sought additional scrutiny on whether the panel selection process and staff are impartial.
Date: