TSCAblog®

In a significant victory for industry, on August 27, 2019, the State of New York Supreme Court invalidated the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (NYDEC) Household Cleansing Product Information Disclosure Program (Disclosure Program).  Information related to NYDEC’s prior delay of its enforcement of its Disclosure Program is available here, and general information regarding the Program and its extensive requirements for manufacturers of certain consumer cleaning products to...

 In a significant victory for industry, on August 27, 2019, the State of New York Supreme Court invalidated the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (NYDEC) Household Cleansing Product Information Disclosure Program (Disclosure Program).  Information related to NYDEC’s prior delay of its enforcement of its Disclosure Program is available here, and general information regarding the Program and its extensive requirements for manufacturers of certain consumer...

The cost of generating health and safety studies is considerable and data owners have every right to expect some protection from disclosure to preserve the value of their intellectual property.  This is no longer guaranteed as Lynn L. Bergeson, Richard E. Engler, Ph.D., and Kathleen M. Roberts wrote in a two-part article in Bloomberg Environment Insights. The authors propose that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) practice of...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on August 22, 2019, the appointment of Dennis Deziel as Regional Administrator for Region 1.  Mr. Deziel will oversee environmental protection efforts in the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut and in ten Tribal Nations.  According to EPA, Mr. Deziel has spent much of his life working in public service in Washington, D.C.  He most recently worked at Dow as the...

On August 23, 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a Federal Register notice proposing to designate 20 chemical substances as high-priority substances for risk evaluation under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  84 Fed. Reg. 44300.  The notice includes a summary of the approach used by EPA to support the proposed designations, the proposed designation for each of the chemical substances, and instructions on how to access the chemical-specific information,...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) posted an August 7, 2019, petition for rulemaking submitted by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) under Section 21 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  PEER asks that oil refineries be prohibited from using hydrofluoric acid in their manufacturing processes and that oil refineries be required to phase out the use of hydrofluoric acid within two years.  According to PEER, TSCA and the Clean Air...

On August 20, 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published in the Federal Register final significant new use rules (SNUR) under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) for 145 chemical substances that are the subject of premanufacture notices (PMN).  84 Fed. Reg. 43266.  According to EPA, the chemical substances are subject to orders issued by EPA pursuant to TSCA Section 5(e).  The final SNURs require persons who intend to manufacture (defined by...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on August 16, 2019, that it is opening a public comment period for manufacturer requests for the risk evaluations of diisodecyl phthalate (DIDP) and diisononyl phthalate (DINP), two chemicals used in plastic production.  EPA notes that the manufacturer-requested risk evaluations “are among the first such evaluations of this kind to be requested” under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  EPA is also taking public...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has named Dr. Lynn Dekleva as Associate Deputy Assistant Administrator for New Chemicals.  Dr. Dekleva joined EPA in October 2018 as a Science Advisor, working to streamline and improve EPA’s processes and timeliness concerning the review of new chemicals under the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act.  Dr. Dekleva is an environmental engineer with degrees in environmental microbiology, medical technology, and biology....

Section 5(g) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) requires the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to publish a statement of its findings after its review of TSCA Section 5(a) notices when EPA makes a finding that a new chemical substance or significant new use is not likely to present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment.  On August 12, 2019, EPA published a statement of its findings for June 2019.  84...