The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on August 15, 2023, that it issued the third Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) test order requiring testing on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) under EPA’s National PFAS Testing Strategy. EPA has ordered the Chemours Company FC LLC, E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, and 3M Company to conduct and submit testing on 2,3,3,3-Tetrafluoro-2-(heptafluoropropoxy)propanoyl fluoride (HFPO-DAF), “a substance used as...
Category: General
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on August 16, 2023, the availability of the latest Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Chemical Substance Inventory. EPA notes that this update to the public TSCA Inventory is part of its biannual posting of non-confidential Inventory data. According to EPA, the Inventory contains 86,718 chemicals, of which 42,242 are active in U.S commerce. Other updates to the TSCA Inventory include updates to commercial activity data, unique...
On August 3, 2023, the Joint Subcommittee on Environment, Innovation, and Public Health Sustainable Chemistry Strategy Team (Sustainable Chemistry ST) of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) published a report entitled Sustainable Chemistry Report: Framing the Federal Landscape. As reported in our January 19, 2021, memorandum, the fiscal year (FY) 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) included the text of the bipartisan Sustainable Chemistry Research and...
August 25, 2023
EPA Will Hold Virtual Training on High Throughput Toxicokinetics Modeling in November 2023
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will hold a two-day training on its high throughput toxicokinetic (HTTK) R package as part of its New Approach Methods (NAM) Training Program: Day 1: Presentation and demo: Wednesday, November 8, 2023, 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. (EST); and Day 2: Expert-led hands-on learning activity: Thursday, November 9, 2023, 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. (EST). According to EPA, toxicokinetics (TK) provides a bridge between toxicity and exposure assessment by...
August 25, 2023
EUON Posts Nanopinion on Nanocrystals Coating by Friction
On August 15, 2023, the European Union (EU) Observatory for Nanomaterials (EUON) published a Nanopinion entitled “Nanocrystals Coating by Friction. A New Approach for Advanced Materials” by Dr. Bentejui Medina-Clavijo, Senior Fellow at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), and Professor Andrey Chuvilin, head of the Electron Microscopy Laboratory at nanoGUNE. According to the authors, it has been found that friction “can dramatically change the surface properties of a...
August 25, 2023
EPA Will Hold Virtual Training on High Throughput Toxicokinetics Modeling in November 2023
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will hold a two-day training on its high throughput toxicokinetic (HTTK) R package as part of its New Approach Methods (NAM) Training Program: Day 1: Presentation and demo: Wednesday, November 8, 2023, 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. (EST); and Day 2: Expert-led hands-on learning activity: Thursday, November 9, 2023, 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. (EST). According to EPA, toxicokinetics (TK) provides a bridge between toxicity and exposure assessment by...
On July 27, 2023, the United Nations (UN) published an electronic version of the tenth revision (Rev 10) of the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS) available for free for consultation purposes. The amendments to the ninth revision of the GHS (Rev 9) include the classification procedure for desensitized explosives (Chapter 2.17); the use of non-animal testing methods for classification of health hazards, in particular: skin corrosion/irritation...
August 24, 2023
EPA Releases Beta Version of ChemExpo, a Tool for Exploring Chemical Use Data Relevant to Exposure Assessment
On August 22, 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published ChemExpo, a free, publicly available search and visualization tool for exploring chemical use data relevant to exposure assessment that has been curated from public documents. According to EPA, the interactive web application focuses on data collected by EPA about how chemicals are used in commerce and how they occur in consumer and industrial products. EPA notes that under the Toxic Substances Control Act...
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) published an updated report on August 4, 2023, on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Sustainable, Ecological, Consistent, Uniform, Responsible, Efficient (SECURE) rule. The revisions note that USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s (APHIS) five-year Strategic Plan for fiscal years (FY) 2023-2027 states that “one of its objectives is to ensure the safe development of agricultural biotechnology products using a...
August 23, 2023
Lynn L. Bergeson Quoted in “US EPA extends planned PFAS enforcement scheme to users” by Chemical Watch
On August 23, 2023, Chemical Watch quoted Lynn L. Bergeson, Managing Partner, Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. (B&C®) regarding a new enforcement effort announced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) imposing liability for PFAS pollution that would target not only manufacturers, but also users of the persistent substances. Lynn Bergeson, managing partner at Bergeson & Campbell, said: "What you don’t know may hurt you, so be PFAS-aware and...