EPA is proposing to ban the solvent n-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) in fertilizers, lubricants and a handful of other products while setting strict new requirements for its continued use in other sectors, including both workplace exposure limits and product restrictions designed to protect consumers in its latest TSCA chemical risk-management rule.
September 16, 2026
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has opened interagency review of EPA’s final TSCA rule governing perchloroethylene (PCE), setting up a renewed battle among stakeholders over the agency’s proposal to ban PCE in many sectors, while imposing strict exposure limits in others and a decade-long phaseout of the solvent for dry-cleaning.
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A group representing occupational and environmental health specialists is raising doubts on key elements of EPA’s proposal to gather existing but unpublished “health and safety studies” on chemicals it floated last fall as candidates for TSCA prioritization, including the value of unpublished data and how occupational monitoring data aligns with EPA’s needs.
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Industry groups and attorneys say OSHA’s newly finalized revisions to the hazard communication standard (HCS) still pose serious “hurdles” for chemical manufacturers and users, even after the agency rewrote a controversial requirement for safety labels to address dangers posed by downstream uses of toxic or hazardous substances.
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Worksafe, a California-based employee-advocacy group that often weighs in on workplace safety issues, has filed what appears to be the first formal lawsuit over EPA’s final overhaul of the TSCA “framework” for risk evaluations of existing chemicals, underlining the focus unions and worker advocates are placing on the agency’s chemical-safety program.
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The United Steelworkers (USW) is signaling that it will seek to formally defend elements of EPA’s TSCA chrysotile asbestos rule that industry groups are seeking to loosen or overturn, in one of the first substantive moves of what could be a precedent-setting legal battle over the landmark regulation.
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OSHA has released its final rule updating the hazard communication standard (HCS) that governs safety labels for toxic, flammable and otherwise dangerous chemicals, including a redone version of its requirement to address hazards posed by chemicals’ downstream uses after employers argued that the original language would impose massive new burdens on them.
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The federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation is sending litigation over the Biden administration’s landmark TSCA rule phasing out uses of chrysotile asbestos to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit -- the same court that overturned the agency’s first attempt to ban asbestos more than 30 years ago when it drastically narrowed EPA’s authority to regulate existing chemicals.
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California lawmakers are advancing a bill that would prohibit, beginning July 1, 2026, the sale and use of firefighter personal protective equipment (PPE) containing intentionally added PFAS, and that would require state regulators to align worker-safety rules with a future national standard for PFAS-free firefighting gear.
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EPA has finalized its TSCA risk management rule for the solvent methylene chloride that top officials say will be a model for future chemical policies under the reformed law, maintaining the strict workplace exposure limit in its 2023 proposal while lengthening phaseout deadlines for some uses and adding a de minimis threshold sought by industry.
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