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Wednesday, May 18, 202212:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. (EDT)Register Today A circular economy requires new thinking about what products we make, from which materials we make them, and where products go at the end of their useful life. An important but often overlooked aspect of new product development is an understanding of the consequences of the product’s chemical composition and the end-of-life implications of the decisions made at the front end of the process. Working...

On March 31, 2022, Chemical Watch reported on a letter written by the TSCA New Chemicals Coalition (NCC) calling on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to suspend its plans to revoke a decades-old policy allowing companies to request corrections to the TSCA inventory.  The TSCA New Chemicals Coalition – an ad hoc group represented by the law firm Bergeson & Campbell – said scrapping the process could give rise to a host...

Download transcript. This week, I was delighted to visit again with Alexandra Dunn, now a Partner with Baker Botts and immediate past Assistant Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP). As Assistant Administrator, Alex was respected and liked by a diversity of industrial and agricultural chemical stakeholders, revered by her immediate staff, and hugely popular as an EPA senior leader. Alex led OCSPP at a...

On March 25, 2022,  Richard E. Engler, Ph.D., Director of Chemistry with Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. (B&C®), was quoted by Bloomberg Law regarding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) plan to no longer process chemical manufacturers’ requests to correct the specific ways chemicals on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) inventory are identified. If the EPA is concerned that companies are using correction requests to add new chemicals to the inventory,...

Wednesday, April 20, 202212:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. (EDT) Register Today Register now to join Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. (B&C®) for “FIFRA Hot Topics,” a complimentary webinar covering key Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) priorities and what companies should know to avoid market delays. Speakers include: Lisa M. Campbell, Partner, B&C, moderatorEdward Messina, Director, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) OPPJames V. Aidala, Senior...

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) announced on March 22, 2022, an initiative to convert historical letters of interpretation (LOI) applicable to the Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR) that have been issued to specific stakeholders into broadly applicable frequently asked questions (FAQ) on its website. 87 Fed. Reg. 16308. PHMSA states that by creating a FAQ repository, it seeks to eliminate the need for recurring...

On March 16, 2022, the House Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Energy held a hearing on “Bioenergy Research and Development for the Fuels and Chemicals of Tomorrow.” According to the hearing charter, the purpose of the hearing was to examine the status of bioenergy research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) activities carried out by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The hearing also considered advancements in bioenergy research and the potential role of this...

Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. (B&C®) and The Acta Group (Acta®) are pleased to announce that Karin F. Baron, MSPH, has been elected to the Board of Directors of the Society for Chemical Hazard Communication. Ms. Baron, a Senior Regulatory Consultant with B&C and Acta, will serve a two-year term. Ms. Baron has participated as an active member of SCHC for the past 20 years; she is the immediate past Chair of the Professional Development Committee. We...

On March 16, 2022, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced two actions intended to safeguard communities from products containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). First, as part of EPA’s efforts to identify, understand, and address PFAS contamination leaching from fluorinated containers, EPA states that it is notifying companies of their obligation to comply with existing requirements under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to ensure unintentional...

On March 14, 2022, Lynn L. Bergeson, Managing Partner, Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. (B&C®), was quoted by Chemical Watch regarding conflicting visions for the upcoming asbestos Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) risk management rule. Lynn Bergeson, managing partner at law firm Bergeson & Campbell, told Chemical Watch the EPA must look at the availability of “technically and economically feasible alternatives that benefit health or the...

On March 14, 2022, Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. (B&C®) was quoted by Chemical Watch on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to no longer consider personal protective equipment (PPE) use in Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) risk evaluations.  Law firm Bergeson & Campbell said assuming PPE will not be used, including in cases where required by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha), “is not based on...

As reported in our February 25, 2022, blog item, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on February 25, 2022, the proposed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) New Chemicals Collaborative Research Program. 87 Fed. Reg. 10784. On March 10, 2022, EPA posted the draft document entitled “Modernizing the Process and Bringing Innovative Science to Evaluate New Chemicals Under TSCA.” The Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) proposes to...

On March 7, 2022, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the availability of the final scope of the risk evaluation to be conducted for octamethylcyclotetra-siloxane (D4), a chemical substance for which EPA received a manufacturer request for risk evaluation under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). 87 Fed. Reg. 12696. The scope document includes the conditions of use (COU), hazards, exposures, and the potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulations (PESS)...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on March 4, 2022, that EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan signed a final rule on March 3, 2022, that will amend the regulations applicable to phenol, isopropylated phosphate (3:1) (PIP (3:1)) promulgated under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). EPA states that it is extending the compliance date applicable to the prohibition on processing and distribution in commerce of certain PIP (3:1)-containing articles, and the PIP (3:1) used...

Download transcript. Dr. Scanlon’s audio quality was affected during parts of this interview due to technical issues. We apologize for the inconvenience. This week I had the pleasure of sitting down with Kelly Scanlon, DrPH, CIH, Director of Environmental Policy & Research, Global Government Relations, at IPC. IPC, as many of you know, is an organization accredited by the American National Standards Institute as a standards development organization. It publishes the most widely...

On March 1, 2022, Lynn L. Bergeson, Managing Partner, Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. (B&C®), was quoted by Chemical Watch responding to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) announcement that it will no longer allow companies to request corrections to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) inventory and instead require them to submit a pre-manufacture notice (PMN) for improperly identified substances.   The decision “is entirely...

On Feburary 28, 2022, Richard E. Engler, Ph.D., Director of Chemistry with Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. (B&C®), was quoted by Bloomberg Law regarding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) announcement that, as of April 26, it will no longer process chemical manufacturers’ requests to correct the specific ways chemicals on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) inventory are identified. If the EPA is concerned that companies are using correction...

Contrary to popular opinion, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) enforcement activity under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) has been trending upward over the last couple of years. As noted in our earlier advisory memorandum on enforcement activity under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), although most parties subject to TSCA inspections receive a “boilerplate” letter, FIFRA enforcement actions tend to be more heterogeneous....

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are getting a lot of attention in the United States and globally. Their varied chemical properties make the categorization of “PFAS” into a single category chemically and scientifically questionable. Increasingly, the ability to make distinctions among this large chemical category is challenging, yet failure to do so could be unwise. This article provides information on PFAS, and offers a few suggestions to keep in mind when making business...

The ubiquity of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and the manufacturing sector’s decades-long reliance on them to impart functionalities in a dizzying array of products put the investor between the proverbial rock and a hard place. PFAS varied chemical properties make the broad categorisation of ‘PFAS’ into a monolithic category of ‘forever chemicals’ chemically and scientifically questionable. For better or worse, however, that is exactly what is happening today, and...