EPA has quietly released workplace exposure limits for five chemicals that will be subject to upcoming TSCA rules, appearing to lay the groundwork not just for those proposals but also a potential reversal on trichloroethylene (TCE), where the agency has prepared two limits -- one based on the Trump-era risk determination and a stricter second option using research the prior administration rejected.
September 16, 2026
Unions, environmentalists and a slew of academics and former OSHA officials are urging EPA to stand behind its reversals of Trump-era TSCA policies governing evaluation of workplace chemical exposures, arguing that an industry call to unwind the new stances is based on “myths” about existing worker-safety rules and voluntary protections.
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Agriculture groups are raising new claims that EPA’s draft hazard assessment of formaldehyde downplayed or even ignored the ubiquitous chemical’s use in “animal industries,” and failed to gather input from the Agriculture Department (USDA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the two agencies most familiar with those sectors.
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A new study from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) warns that there are major data gaps on risks posed by indoor exposures to a variety of chemicals and mixtures in part because even well-studied contaminants can behave differently in indoor environments, potentially boosting recent calls for OSHA to develop indoor air safety standards.
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Democrats have introduced their latest bill seeking to ban all uses of asbestos, but its prospects appear uncertain at best as it is even stricter than a 2019 version that collapsed without a vote, including a phaseout schedule mirroring EPA’s proposed TSCA rule that industry opposes and a definition of commercial “asbestos” similar to what has divided supporters of past legislation.
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Paint and pigment trade groups are saying EPA’s new policy of assuming workers will not use protective gear in TSCA risk evaluations is “illegal” and irrational, charging that the agency has improperly ignored existing workplace practices and OSHA safety standards as well as companies’ general duty to protect their workers from “recognized” dangers.
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Industry lawyers are raising broad concerns that strict worker safety standards and other provisions in EPA’s recently proposed TSCA ban on chrysotile asbestos uses signals the agency is take a tougher approach than OSHA and other federal agencies, raising questions about which agency has primacy over workplace safety.
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The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has begun formal interagency review of the Biden administration’s draft Risk Management Program (RMP) rule governing chemical facility safety, a measure that officials have said will strengthen a Trump-era version of the rule in part to account for climate and environmental justice (EJ) risks.
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The chemical industry is praising what it says are recent moves by EPA to consult OSHA and other work-safety agencies to bolster the TSCA office’s approach to occupational exposure and risk analysis, while pursuing its own efforts to harmonize approaches to that discipline used by the toxics program, industrial hygienists and occupational regulators.
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EPA’s draft finding that formaldehyde exposures can lead to leukemia drew a range of reactions from other federal entities that reviewed a pre-release draft with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) leading praise of the cancer analysis while others warned that they see evidence of that link as more tenuous than the agency is claiming.
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