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Ask just about anyone doing business in the US making or importing products that contain chemicals what they think about the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) new per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) reporting rule, and you will get a decidedly grumpy response. Granted, no businessperson welcomes any new chemical reporting obligation, but by any standard, the EPA’s 11 October 2023 final PFAS reporting rule is problematic and is inviting uniquely scathing criticism....

On June 29, 2023, B&C, along with the Environmental Law Institute and the George Washington  University Milken Institute of Public Health, sponsored the all-day virtual conference, TSCA Reform — Seven Years Later. The conference was hugely successful and over 700 people registered for it. The quality of the discussion, the caliber of the participants, and the timeliness of the content motivated us to repurpose the substantive sessions to enable our podcast audience to listen...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on October 20, 2023, the release of a final rule that is intended to improve reporting on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) by eliminating an exemption that allowed facilities to avoid reporting information on PFAS when those chemicals were used in small concentrations. The final rule will add PFAS subject to reporting under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) and...

California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the release of an enforcement advisory letter on October 17, 2023, to manufacturers, distributors, and sellers of food packaging and cookware, alerting them to their obligations under AB 1200, a recently enacted statute that restricts the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in food packaging and imposes labeling disclosure requirements for cookware. Bonta also issued a consumer alert with tips for reducing PFAS exposures. The...

On September 28, 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its long-overdue final rule under Section 8(a)(7) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The rule requires reporting and recordkeeping requirements for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). As discussed in this article, the final rule is not what many of us expected nor wanted....

The American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources (SEER) is holding its 31st fall conference October 11-13, 2023, in Washington, D.C. On October 12, 2023, in his remarks at the conference, David Uhlmann, Assistant Administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA), stated that EPA will not pursue per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) enforcement actions against farmers who used biosolids,...

On October 8, 2023, California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) announced that he vetoed a number of bills, including AB 727, which would prohibit, by 2026, the manufacture, distribution, or sale of cleaning products that contain intentionally added per- or polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), and would apply this ban, by 2028, to floor sealer or floor finish products. Newsom’s veto message notes that the bill is one of three single-product chemical bans passed by the legislature to...

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) published two Requests for Comments (RFC) on two planned per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) rulemakings in the September 25, 2023, State Register, the PFAS in Products Reporting Rule (Revisor ID Number R-4828) and the PFAS in Products Fees Rule (Revisor ID Number R-4827). Comments on the RFCs are due by 4:30 p.m. (CST) on Tuesday, November 28, 2023....

On September 28, 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a long-overdue final rule under Section 8(a)(7) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) regarding reporting and recordkeeping requirements for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). As discussed below, the final rule is not what many of us expected, nor wanted. EPA states that the reporting rule is a statutory requirement under the fiscal year (FY) 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that requires...

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) publicly released a report on September 27, 2023, entitled “Persistent Chemicals: Detecting, Limiting Exposure To, and Treating PFAS Contamination.” According to GAO, examples of how per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) enter the environment include: GAO’s recommendations, published in earlier reports, include: GAO states that it has ongoing work examining public water systems’ implementation of PFAS treatment methods and efforts to...