California’s plan to list nail products containing toluene as a “priority product” under its green chemistry program is drawing fire from labor and health groups, who charge its use of an industry-backed “alternatives analysis threshold” (AAT) will expose too many salon employees to unsafe levels of the chemical.
Oil sector groups are joining industry attacks on EPA’s decision to drop an assumption that workers will use personal protective equipment (PPE) from Trump-era TSCA evaluations, echoing claims that the new policy is unlawful and irrational while also asserting it is impossible to fit with the existing risk reviews and requires a new, multi-year process.
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.
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is praising a recent set of draft Significant New Use Rules (SNURs) that they say appears to include EPA’s first-ever use of worker exposure protection levels, known as New Chemical Exposure Limits (NCEL), in TSCA regulations governing specific new chemical uses.
Environmental health experts at a recent National Academy of Sciences (NAS) meeting said extensive new research is needed to identify the full range of workers exposed to toxic per- and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS), based on newer studies suggesting exposure even for those who may not knowingly handle the chemicals directly.
A trade group is calling on EPA to partner with OSHA on a reworked version of its proposed rule banning current uses of chrysotile asbestos, arguing that TSCA requires the two agencies to coordinate and gives a leading role to the work-safety agency, even as unions and public health advocates say OSHA’s asbestos limits too outdated to protect workers.
Major industry associations are calling on EPA to drop its proposed ban on current uses of chrysotile asbestos and instead agree that the notorious carcinogen can be “safe” with strong enough worker protections, signaling they may be uninterested in negotiating a phase-out even after previously backing legislation that would have imposed a ban.
With little warning, EPA has revived and finalized a 2016 proposal that aims to harmonize its approach to regulating new chemicals with OSHA’s overall worker protection practices and the terms of that agency’s 2012 Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) -- rejecting industry objections that certain policies are either inconsistent with TSCA or redundant.
A top TSCA official says EPA’s pending rule banning use of chrysotile asbestos is not “indicative” of how it will regulate workplace exposures and other risks from chemicals under the reformed toxics law, telling stakeholders to look instead at upcoming rules for several solvents, starting with methylene chloride, as a better model for the future.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), ranking member on the Senate’s environment committee, used a June 22 hearing to warn EPA’s chemicals chief that her office is “drifting” into territory better regulated by OSHA, arguing that it should stay away from addressing personal protective equipment (PPE) and other worker protection measures.