Environmentalists are touting new allegations that chlor-alkali industry workers face severe asbestos exposures despite safety guidelines, saying the claims bolster not only the agency’s proposed TSCA ban on the substance but also its overall decision to stop assuming workers will use protective gear in chemical risk evaluations.
The non-profit outlet ProPublica is reporting chlor-alkali firms have long exposed workers to high chrysotile asbestos levels, including violations of OSHA’s permissible exposure limit (PEL), potentially undercutting the industry’s argument that it should be exempt from a proposed EPA rule banning use of the notorious carcinogen.
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.
The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is renewing its calls for EPA to strengthen its oversight of refiners’ use of hydrofluoric acid (HF), in a report on a 2019 refinery incident that urges officials to prioritize HF for risk evaluation under TSCA and to require a safer-alternatives review under the risk management plan (RMP) program.
A coalition of chemical firms is warning EPA that its novel “whole chemical” approach to TSCA risk determinations could “functionally disable” the law’s restrictions on using workplace risks from chemical exposures to justify rules limiting manufacture, import or use of finished articles, just as officials are preparing to step up their use of that power.
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.
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) is stepping up attacks on the peer review of EPA’s draft formaldehyde risk assessment, charging that the National Academy of Science (NAS) is unlawfully concealing key information on its review process amid a long-running battle over the ubiquitous chemical’s risks to workers.
A top union official is urging EPA to follow OSHA’s approach to assessing workplace risks from toxic chemicals rather than “reinventing the wheel” for the TSCA program, saying a new framework would create unnecessary difficulties for employers and workers alike, while other experts warned that contradictory systems will frustrate data-sharing.
An industry attorney says employers are facing a “big change” in the worker safeguards required by EPA’s significant new use rules (SNURs) for chemical safety after that agency adopted a new policy tightening several elements of the rules, including adoption of a hierarchy of controls model long favored by OSHA.
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.