Blogs

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) announced on July 10, 2019, the availability of a new Technical Report, The NIOSH Occupational Exposure Banding Process for Chemical Risk Management.  NIOSH describes occupational exposure banding as “a voluntary process that assigns each chemical to a category based on its toxicity and any negative health outcomes associated with exposure to that chemical.”  The Technical Report “provides a process...

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) announced on July 3, 2019, that several new features and improvements are now publicly available in its chemicals database, including new information in substance Infocards.  ECHA has updated the substance Infocards with a new nanomaterial form section that shows whether the substance is placed on the European Economic Area (EEA) market in nanoform and provides links to the European Union (EU) Observatory for Nanomaterials (EUON).  As...

On July 18, 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a pre-publication version of a Federal Register notice announcing a final order denying the Pesticide Action Network North America’s (PANNA) and the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) 2007 Petition requesting that EPA revoke all tolerances and cancel all registrations for chlorpyrifos (Order).  This Order constitutes final Agency action denying all of the Petitioners’ objections to EPA’s...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a Federal Register notice on June 28, 2019, announcing that the EPA Safer Choice Program is accepting submissions for its 2019 Safer Choice Partner of the Year Awards.  84 Fed. Reg. 31066.  The Safer Choice Program partners with businesses and others to help consumers and commercial buyers identify products with safer chemical ingredients, “without sacrificing quality or performance.”  Toward this end, according to EPA, the Safer...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On July 8, 2019, the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) announced the winners of the Consider Corn Challenge II, a challenge intended to highlight the range of biobased materials that can be produced with field corn feedstock. The three winners included: ExoPolymer, Inc. for a plan to create a new profile of customizable, polysaccharide-based hydrocolloids that are domestically produced by microbial fermentation using corn sugar as a feedstock. These new hydrocolloids...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On July 12, 2019, the House Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency Caucus and the Environmental and Energy Study Institute co-hosted the 22nd Annual Congressional Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency EXPO and Policy Forum. The forum brought together government agencies, businesses, and trade associations to showcase renewable energy technologies and discus sustainable public policy options. Ruth McCormick, Director, Federal and State Affairs, Business Council for...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On July 10, 2019, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have developed a model that predicts commercial biocrude outcomes from algae hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) significantly more accurately than previous analyses. “Techno-economic uncertainty quantification of algal-derived biocrude via hydrothermal liquefaction,” funded by DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On July 10, 2019, Senators Chris Coons (D-DE) and Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Representatives Steve Stivers (R-OH) and Bill Foster (D-IL) reintroduced the STRONGER (Support Technology & Research for Our Nation’s Growth and Economic Resilience) Patents Act of 2019. This legislation, an improvement on legislation introduced last year under the same name, would reform the inter partes post-grant review process, ensure all fees paid to the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO)...

Earlier this month, David Fischer joined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) as a Deputy Assistant Administrator.  Prior to joining EPA, Mr. Fischer was most recently a partner of legal and regulatory affairs at IBEX Partners LLC, a public affairs firm.  Before his partnership at IBEX, Mr. Fischer held several senior positions at the American Chemistry Council in its Office of General Counsel and Chemical Products and...

On July 12, 2019, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published in the EFSA Journal its “Scientific opinion on the proposed amendment of the EU specifications for titanium dioxide (E 171) with respect to the inclusion of additional parameters related to its particle size distribution.”  The opinion addresses the assessment of data provided by interested business operators in support of an amendment of the European Union (EU) specifications for titanium dioxide (E 171)...