Blogs

On August 1, 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the first five product and service categories chosen for the expansion of its Recommendations of Specifications, Standards, and Ecolabels for Federal Purchasing (Recommendations). EPA notes that this action supports the broader effort announced last year to expand the Recommendations by assessing additional standards and ecolabels. EPA states that later in 2023, it anticipates announcing the...

On August 3, 2023, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (MDEP) announced that it would accept stakeholder comment on its rule concept draft language that would prohibit manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors from offering for sale or for promotional purposes in Maine certain types of food packaging to which per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been intentionally introduced. MDEP states that it has the authority to prohibit the sale of a food package to which...

By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton   On July 27, 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) announced that its Feedstock-Conversion Interface Consortium (FCIC) recently published eight new technical reports and case studies. According to BETO, the publications examine the environmental and economic impacts of a variety of feedstock characteristics and processing techniques: Life-Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emission Impacts of Forest Residue...

By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton   On July 27, 2023, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published a new document in its Series on Harmonization of Regulatory Oversight in Biotechnology, Safety Assessment of Transgenic Organisms in the Environment, Volume 10: OECD Consensus Document on Environmental Considerations for the Release of Transgenic Plants. The document addresses environmental risk/safety assessment at a broader level than previous consensus...

On August 15, 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will hold a webinar on its proposed rule to protect workers from exposure to carbon tetrachloride (CTC).  EPA published the proposed rule on July 28, 2023. 88 Fed. Reg. 49180. EPA states that if issued in final, “the rule would require a workplace chemical protection program with strict exposure limits for essentially the entire domestic production volume of CTC, workplace controls for laboratory use of CTC, and a ban...

By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton On July 19, 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) extended the comment period on proposed amendments to the new chemicals procedural regulations under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). 88 Fed. Reg. 46125. According to EPA, the amendments are “intended to align the regulatory text with the amendments to TSCA’s new chemicals review provisions contained in the [2016] Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st...

On June 26, 2023, the European Commission’s (EC) Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) published the second revision of its Guidance on the Safety Assessment of Nanomaterials in Cosmetics. The Guidance covers the main elements of safety assessment, i.e., general considerations (Section 2), material characterization (Section 3), exposure assessment (Section 4), hazard identification and dose-response characterization (Section 5), and risk assessment (Section 6). SCCS states...

By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton   The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) announced on July 17, 2023, that it will host a Bioenergy Cybersecurity Workshop, a virtual event organized by Sandia National Laboratories on September 11, 2023, to identify cybersecurity risks in biofuel and bioproduct manufacturing, and develop an approach to address these risks. According to BETO, the workshop will raise awareness of the importance of cybersecurity in...

On July 31, 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it provided more than $1.3 million in funding to a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to develop nanosensor technology that can detect, monitor, and degrade commonly used pesticides found in water that can harm human health. According to EPA, using funding from the grant, researchers will develop an integrated, portable, sensor-controlled water treatment technology that itself...

On July 31, 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it provided more than $1.3 million in funding to a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to develop nanosensor technology that can detect, monitor, and degrade commonly used pesticides found in water that can harm human health. According to EPA, using funding from the grant, researchers will develop an integrated, portable, sensor-controlled water treatment technology that itself...