Chemical Safety

The White House is preparing to hold the first in a series of stakeholder meetings on EPA’s precedent-setting draft TSCA risk management rule for the solvent methylene chloride, with labor unions and a key industry group in line to make their cases for a strict or lenient approach before the agency releases a formal proposal next year.

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.

Leaders of the Chemical Sector Coordinating Council (CSCC), an industry coalition that works with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), are urging Congress to swiftly reauthorize the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program before it expires in 2023, emphasizing what they say has been valuable public-private collaboration and successful work preventing cybersecurity and other chemical incidents.

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.

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.