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Bergeson & Campbell, P.C.’s (B&C®) October 11, 2022, webinar “Environmental, Social, and Governance Issues: A Business Imperative” is now available for on-demand viewing. During this one-hour webinar, experts from FTI Consulting, Christine DiBartolo, Senior Managing Director, Head of Americas Corporate Reputation, and Ken Ditzel, Senior Managing Director, explore the hows and whys of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues, clearing up what can be a confusing...

Download transcript. This week, I welcomed back to the studio Karin F. Baron, Senior Regulatory Consultant at B&C and our consulting affiliate, The Acta Group. Karin and I discuss the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) initiative called the New Era of Smarter Food Safety. The goal of this initiative is to diminish the number of foodborne illness, which, surprisingly, has not diminished since the Food Safety Modernization Act was enacted 11 years ago. We discuss...

On September 20, 2022, the European Commission (EC) began a public consultation on a draft act that would introduce new hazard classes as part of its revision to Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 on the Classification, Labeling, and Packaging of Substances and Mixtures (CLP). Hazard classes and criteria would be added for endocrine disruptors and substances that are persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT), very persistent and very bioaccumulative (vPvB), persistent, mobile, and toxic...

October 26, 202212:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. (EDT) Register Now  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reports that 48 million people in the United States (1 in 6) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die each year from foodborne diseases. In 2011, President Obama signed into law the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in part to address this significant public health issue. FSMA is a comprehensive law intended to shift the focus of...

On September 12, 2022, the European Commission (EC) opened a call for evidence on a proposal for a basic regulation for the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). According to the EC, this initiative aims to strengthen ECHA governance and adapt it to its future role, as well as streamline the working methods of ECHA bodies and make their financing more sustainable. Responses are due October 10, 2022. The EC plans to adopt a regulation in the second quarter of 2023....

Cleanup costs under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) are about to get a lot more expensive. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on September 6, 2022, that it will propose to designate perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), two of the most widely used per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), as hazardous substances under CERCLA. The rulemaking would also require entities immediately to report...

On September 19, 2022, Bloomberg Law quoted Lynn L. Bergeson, Managing Partner, Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. (B&C®), and Richard E. Engler, Ph.D., Director of Chemistry, B&C, regarding a federal court’s dismissal of Lanxess AG‘s petition asking to challenge an EPA order after the agency clarified that Lanxess and certain other chemical manufacturers wouldn’t be required to test chemicals they formerly made. Lynn Bergeson, managing partner of Bergeson & Campbell PC,...

Download transcript. This week I sat down with James Cox, M.S., Senior Scientist with B&C. James is an exceptional biologist with significant experience assessing the risk of industrial chemicals. Before joining B&C, James served in a variety of leadership positions in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Pollution Prevent and Toxics, one of which was Chair of the Risk Assessment Technical Team, which provided recommendations to inform EPA’s policy...

The scope of what diligence is due in any corporate transaction has evolved greatly over the past decade, particularly with respect to transactions involving chemical products. Once upon a time, transactional due diligence involving chemical products, whether ‘neat’ (pure) chemicals, formulations or end-use products, typically consisted of a phase I or phase II environmental site assessment (ESA) focusing on identifying contamination derivative of chemical releases into environmental media...

On September 7, 2022, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) held a webinar to introduce a cumulative risk assessment (CRA) framework that takes into account multiple exposures to chemical and non-chemical stressors. Sarah Vogel, Senior Vice President for Health at EDF, moderated the webinar. According to Vogel, for decades, environmental justice leaders have documented disproportionate chemical exposures to disadvantaged communities. These chemical and social stressors (e.g., racism and...