TSCAblog®

On February 2, 2017, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) voted out Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt’s nomination for Administrator of the U.S. Environmental protection Agency (EPA).  As expected, EPW Committee Democrats boycotted the vote.  EPW Committee Chair Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) called a vote to set aside the Committee rules that require two Democrats to be present.  The vote passed, and the final vote to approve Scott Pruitt for...

In January, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued its initial report to Congress on its capacity to implement certain provisions of the amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  The report, prepared by EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) for the Committees on Energy and Commerce, and appropriations of the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Committees on Environment and Public Works, and Appropriations of the U.S. Senate, was...

On January 27, 2017, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued in the Federal Register a notice of delay of an effective date of a final rule issued on December 27, 2016 (81 Fed. Reg. 94980).  The final rule announced amendments to CBP regulations regarding the requirement to file a Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) certification when importing into the customs territory of the United States chemicals in bulk form or as part of mixtures and articles containing a chemical or...

On January 19, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a Federal Register notice announcing it will be holding a public meeting to receive public input and information on uses and conditions of use for the initial ten chemicals to be evaluated under Section 6(b)(2)(A) of the amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) on February 14, 2017, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. (EST), at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, Polaris Room, 1300...

On January 19, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an interpretation of Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Section 14 concerning confidential business information (CBI) claims for information submitted to EPA.  82 Fed. Reg. 6522.  Under the interpretation, EPA expresses its view that new TSCA requires substantiation of all non-exempt CBI claims at the time the information claimed as confidential is submitted to EPA.  In the notice, EPA also states that the...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently published three Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) proposed framework rules:  TSCA Inventory Notification (Active-Inactive) Requirements (Jan. 13, 2017); Procedures for Prioritization of Chemicals for Risk Evaluation Under the Toxic Substances Control Act (Jan. 17, 2017); and Procedures for Chemical Risk Evaluation Under the Amended Toxic Substances Control Act (Jan. 19, 2017).  Summaries, insights, and commentary from...

On January 13, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a proposed rule that would establish a process for conducting risk evaluations to determine whether a chemical substance presents an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment, including an unreasonable risk to a potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulation, under the conditions of use.  The process would not consider costs or other nonrisk factors.  Risk evaluation is the second step, after...

On January 11, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it would be issuing a rule proposing to prohibit the manufacture (including import), processing, and distribution in commerce of trichloroethylene (TCE) for use in vapor degreasing; to prohibit commercial use of TCE in vapor degreasing; to require manufacturers, processors, and distributors, except for retailers of TCE for any use, to provide downstream notification of these prohibitions throughout the supply chain;...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is scheduled to publish a proposed rule in the January 17, 2017, Federal Register that would establish a risk-based screening process and criteria that EPA will use to identify chemical substances as either High-Priority Substances for risk evaluation, or Low-Priority Substances for which risk evaluations are not warranted at the time.  The pre-publication version of the proposed rule describes the processes for identifying potential...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is scheduled to publish a proposed rule on January 13, 2017, that would require a retrospective electronic notification of chemical substances on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Inventory that were manufactured (including imported) for non-exempt commercial purposes during the ten-year time period ending on June 21, 2016.  EPA would also accept such notices for chemical substances that were processed.  The recent TSCA amendments require...