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.
Environmentalists are asking an appellate court in Washington, DC, to allow them to intervene in industry’s challenge to EPA’s ban on consumer uses of paint-stripping products containing methylene chloride (MC), a move that may ultimately lead the case to be consolidated with environmentalists’ separate suit in an appellate court in New York.
Labor and other groups are urging EPA science advisors ahead of their upcoming meeting to examine whether the agency provided adequate data for its draft conclusion that pigment violet 29 (PV29) does not pose unreasonable risk to workers and other exposed populations, stepping up their long-running effort to challenge EPA’s first assessment of an existing chemical under the revised toxics law.
Environmental and labor groups are suggesting they will sue the agency if it proceeds with its proposed training program for commercial users of paint-stripping products containing methylene chloride, charging the agency has failed to justify its approach after the Obama administration found the chemical posed unreasonable risks to workers.
EPA has approved an alternative disposal method for asbestos-containing pipe under the agency’s air toxics rules for asbestos, despite a labor group’s concerns that the new practice might not comply with OSHA requirements.