After reading the article below by Jeffery Morris, former Director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT), we were inspired to post it. We appreciate having the opportunity to share his analysis with our audience. TSCA as a Gap-Filling Statute: Potentially Exposed and Susceptible Subpopulations By Jeffery Morris, PhD In its response to public comments on the scope documents for its next twenty chemical risk evaluations conducted...
By Lynn L. Bergeson On October 19, 2020, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) announced that, in 2019, renewable energy consumption levels in the United States increased for the fourth year in a row, reaching a record 11 percent of total energy consumption. Wood and waste energy, wood pellets, and biomass waste from landfills accounted for approximately 24 percent of U.S. renewable energy use. According to EIA, industrial, commercial, and electric power facilities use wood and...
November 6, 2020
DOE Announces Funding For Plastics Recycling R&D
By Lynn L. Bergeson On October 15, 2020, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the availability of over $27 million in funding for 12 projects supporting research and development (R&D) efforts toward advanced plastics recycling technologies and new recyclable plastics. These efforts are part of DOE’s Plastics Innovation Challenge, which aims to improve existing recycling processes that break plastics down into chemical building blocks that can be used to make new products....
November 6, 2020
USDA Announces Grants To Increase Ethanol And Biodiesel Sales
By Lynn L. Bergeson On October 8, 2020, Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has made $22 million available in grants to increase sales of ethanol and biodiesel. The funds are coming out of the $100 million in grants available through the Higher Blends Infrastructure Incentive Program (HBIIP) and have been disbursed to 14 states. USDA predicts that the investments will increase ethanol demand by approximately 150 million gallons...
November 6, 2020
FDA Requests Comments On Reauthorization Of BsUFA
By Lynn L. Bergeson On October 30, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it will host a virtual public meeting on the reauthorization of the Biosimilar User Fee Act (BsUFA) for fiscal years 2023 through 2027. Under BsUFA, FDA collects user fees to support its process for the review of biosimilar and biological products and the current legislative authority is set to expire in September 2022. At the aforementioned time, new legislation will be required for FDA to...
By Lynn L. Bergeson On October 20, 2020, Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Representative Mike Levin (D-CA) introduced in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives the Zero-Emission Vehicles At of 2020 (the Act). The Act would amend Part A of Title II of the Clean Air Act (CAA) to create a federal national zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) standard and address climate change by ending U.S. sales of new gasoline-powered vehicles in 2035. Senator Merkley and Representative Levin’s...
November 5, 2020
EPA Announces Environmental Justice Consultations on Risk Management Rulemakings for Methylene Chloride and 1-BP
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on November 3, 2020, that it will hold webinars to consult with environmental justice communities on risk management for methylene chloride and 1-bromopropane (1-BP). EPA states that the webinars are open to the public and will focus on the environmental justice impacts of EPA’s development of proposed rules to address the unreasonable risks identified in the final Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) risk evaluations for these...
November 4, 2020
Lynn L. Bergeson Co-Authors Article on Essentials of TSCA Practice
We are pleased to announce that the American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources published an article written by Lynn L. Bergeson and Eve C. Gartner entitled “The essentials of TSCA practice” in the November/December 2020 issue of Trends. According to the authors, legal practitioners should be aware of the commercial, legal, and reputational implications of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) as amended by the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for...
November 3, 2020
EPA Requests Comments on Its Proposal to Add Chitosan to Minimum Risk Pesticide Active Ingredient List
On November 2, 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a notice in the Federal Register announcing the proposed rule to add chitosan (Poly-D-Glucosamine) to its list of active ingredients eligible for EPA’s minimum risk pesticide exemption under Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) Section 25(b). 85 Fed. Reg. 69307. The proposed rule is in response to a petition submitted to EPA on October 10, 2018, requesting...
On October 30, 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a final rule on the Agricultural Worker Protection Standard (WPS) regulation that revises the requirements on the pesticide application exclusion zone (AEZ), defined as an “area surrounding the point(s) of pesticide discharge from the application equipment that must generally be free of all persons during pesticide applications.” According to EPA, the targeted changes improve the enforceability and...