Chemical Safety

House Democrats’ bill to ban uses of asbestos appears to be advancing after state officials opened the door to a longer phase-out period for chlorine producers, but few involved in talks on the bill are discussing prospects that implementing any ban will eventually drive the sector to use an alternate technology that uses perflourinated chemicals.

EPA is facing a possible suit from environmentalists after the agency rejected claims that a modified Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) significant new use rule (SNUR) for use of a specific chemical lacks adequate protections for oilfield workers that are exposed to the substance and any formaldehyde that may be associated with it.

Following criticism that EPA was unnecessarily rushing to complete the first 10 risk evaluations required by the revised toxics law by the end of the year, the agency’s toxics chief says officials will use the additional six months the law allows to complete the studies but they are still aiming to complete all peer reviews by the December 2019 deadline.

A pending suit over EPA’s denial of environmentalists’ petition seeking to require reporting of asbestos uses under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) is testing plaintiffs’ ability to use remedies in both the toxics law and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to challenge such denials, potentially expanding plaintiffs’ litigation options.

Federal and local officials are stepping up calls for the Trump administration to strengthen oversight of the use and storage of hydrogen fluoride (HF) by dozens of refiners in the wake of a series of industrial incidents at several facilities across the country that have raised safety concerns for employees and adjacent communities.

EPA is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to transfer industry’s challenge over the agency’s recent ban of consumer sales of the paint-stripping chemical methylene chloride to the 2nd Circuit, where environmentalists and labor groups previously filed their own challenges to EPA’s rule.

Three years after Congress reformed the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), handing EPA a host of new authorities to regulate industrial chemicals, agency staff are struggling to meet the law’s deadlines, many rules face litigation, and states and retailers continue to lack confidence that the new regime will provide the certainty they are seeking.

Long-running divisions between OSHA and other agencies over how to assess the risks of the ubiquitous solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) have been thrown into stark relief as a federal health agency is backing EPA’s 2011 assessment setting strict risk values for the chemical.

EPA has found that the ubiquitous solvent 1,4 dioxane poses risks to workers “in certain circumstances,” according to a newly released draft evaluation, opening the door to new workplace protections or limits on the chemical’s use under its revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) authority.

Advisors reviewing EPA’s first draft chemical risk evaluation under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) have raised sharp concerns about several aspects of the draft assessment of pigment violet 29 (PV29), with some urging officials to gather more data on risks to workers and others because the draft does not support its threshold finding that the chemical doesn’t require risk management.