EPA is asking federal courts to stay for 120 days consolidated challenges to the Biden-era TSCA rule phasing out chrysotile asbestos to limit workplace exposures and the new-chemicals “framework” rule governing how new chemical reviews are conducted while incoming Trump appointees determine how they want to proceed.
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
The Trump administration is delaying the effective date of the Biden EPA’s TSCA rule banning many uses of the industrial solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) after two federal courts temporarily stalled the rule’s original Jan. 16 effective date, subjecting the rule to provisions of President Donald Trump’s order freezing pending regulations for review.
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The Biden EPA has released for public comment a draft scoping document that outlines its plans for what uses of -- and occupational exposures from -- vinyl chloride the agency’s TSCA evaluation will consider, although the incoming Trump administration will craft the evaluation and may have different ideas of how to do so.
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OSHA and EPA have released an agreement months in the making that outlines how the two agencies will share information and coordinate when EPA is reviewing workers’ safety in its TSCA existing chemical evaluations and enforcing risk management rules, while reiterating the two agencies’ unique authorities and responsibilities.
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An EPA draft evaluation of a phthalate known as DCHP finds that inhalation exposure to the widely used plasticizer presents unreasonable risks to worker’s health, a finding that if finalized would require the agency to write risk management rules to address risks stemming from nine “conditions of use” (COU) that contribute to the finding.
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EPA’s final TSCA evaluation for the phthalate DIDP finds that six of the chemical’s uses pose “unreasonable risk” to workers warranting regulation -- a significant departure from its earlier draft that found risk from just one use -- likely teeing up attacks from industry groups that requested the review, and could now ask the incoming Trump administration to redo it.
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EPA’s long-awaited final TSCA evaluation of formaldehyde concludes that the ubiquitous chemical poses unreasonable risk to workers in a wide variety of sectors, and to consumers, but significantly loosens the occupational exposure standard after members of Congress and industry critics called the draft value a “de facto ban” on its use.
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EPA is defending the legality of its landmark rule banning many uses of the solvent methylene chloride and imposing strict worker-protection mandates on those that continue, saying the policy is “reasonable” and grounded in statutory language -- even as the incoming Trump administration could drop those positions next month.
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EPA has issued a final TSCA risk management rule for the solvent carbon tetrachloride (CTC) that sets strict new worker-protection requirements for many applications of the chemical while allowing industry to continue most if not all of those current uses, while extending key compliance deadlines from what it proposed last year.
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EPA has issued a draft TSCA evaluation of the synthetic rubber component 1,3-butadiene finding that inhalation exposure to the ubiquitous chemical poses unreasonable risk to the health of workers and the general population, just weeks after finalizing court settlements that set deadlines for that review and more than 20 others.
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