This analysis reviews the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (S. 697) as passed by the Senate on December 17, 2015, and compares it to the previous version of S. 697 (identified as Lautenberg2 in this analysis), passed by the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee in June 2015. This review also briefly compares S. 697 to H.R. 2576, the [Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)] Modernization Act of 2015, which passed the House of Representatives on...
Category: Risk Assessment Issues
December 18, 2015
Danish EPA Posts Several Publications Regarding Nanomaterials
This month the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (Danish EPA) published the following publications, in English, concerning nanomaterials: Better control of nanomaterials — summary of the 4-year Danish initiative on nanomaterials: The “Better control of nanomaterials” initiative intended to create an overview of the possible risks of using nanomaterials, focusing on consumers and the environment. The report states: “Generally, there is still a need for more information on where...
December 16, 2015
IRSST Publishes Best Practices Guidance for Nanomaterial Risk Management in the Workplace
On December 11, 2015, the Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail (IRSST), a leading occupational health and safety research center in Canada, published the second edition of its Best Practices Guidance for Nanomaterial Risk Management in the Workplace. IRSST intends the Guidance to support the safe development of nanotechnologies in Québec by bringing together current scientific knowledge on hazard identification, strategies for determining nanomaterial...
In a press release issued on November 22, 2015, the Canadian province of Québec (Quebec) announced its release of Québec Pesticide Strategy 2015-2018. Although the Strategy itself is available only in French, Québec has provided a summary of the Strategy in English, which is available here. Québec’s press release states that the Strategy “sets out the major directions and goals that will guide government action to protect public health, pollinators, and the environment in...
November 11, 2015
Denmark Posts Several Publications Concerning Nanomaterials
On November 10, 2015, the Danish Environmental Protection Agency posted the following publications concerning nanomaterials: Environmental assessment of nanomaterial use in Denmark: This is the concluding report of the project “Nanomaterials — occurrence and effects in the Danish environment” (NanoDEN). The projects in NanoDEN aimed to investigate and generate new environmentally relevant knowledge concerning nanomaterials on the Danish market and to assess the possible associated risks to...
November 9, 2015
Australia Implementing Reforms to the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme (NICNAS)
As most recently reported in The Acta Group's (ACTA®) October 28, 2015, Global Regulatory Update, the Australian government is implementing reforms to the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme (NICNAS). According to an item in the October 6, 2015, issue of The NICNAS Bulletin, the September 2015 implementation plan outlines opportunities for community and industry consultation; timing of legislative and information technology (IT) system...
On October 30, 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it is requesting comments on a proposal to revoke all tolerances for the insecticide chlorpyrifos. EPA issued this proposal in response to an August 10, 2015, writ of mandamus by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The court granted this unusual relief in response to a 2007 administrative petition to cancel chlorpyrifos registrations or to revoke chlorpyrifos tolerances by the...
October 26, 2015
NanoValid Publishes “Nano to go!”
In September 2015, “Nano to go!” was published. “Nano to go!” is “a practically oriented guidance on safe handling of nanomaterials and other innovative materials at the workplace.” The German Federal Institute for Occupational Health (BAuA) developed it within the NanoValid project. “Nano to go!” includes the following materials: A brochure, Safe handling of nanomaterials and other advanced materials at workplaces, that supports risk assessment and risk...
Like so many other regulatory programs in China, pesticide regulations are changing. At the 8th China High-Level Forum on Pesticides, Ying Ji, Chief Agronomist of the Institute for the Control of Agrochemicals, Ministry of Agriculture (ICAMA), stated that the future of pesticide regulation in China will see more emphasis placed on industrial development, registration security, the application of more risk assessment techniques, and will focus more on reducing the burden of procuring...
October 2, 2015
OECD Posts Preliminary Guidance Notes on Nanomaterials Concerning Interspecies Variability Factors in Human Health Risk Assessment
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) posted a new publication in its Series on the Safety of Manufactured Nanomaterials, Preliminary Guidance Notes on Nanomaterials: Interspecies Variability Factors in Human Health Risk Assessment. The report includes the following recommendations for further work: The Expert Opinion prepared in support of the project noted a general lack of availability of data from repeated-dose toxicity studies in different species. In...