EPA Submits Final Rulemaking on Procedures for Evaluating Existing Chemical Risks under TSCA to OMB for Review and Approval
EPA’s proposed rule describes 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; and identifies the steps of a risk evaluation process including scope, hazard assessment, exposure assessment, risk characterization, and finally a risk determination. This process would be used for the first ten chemical substances to be evaluated from the 2014 update of the TSCA Work Plan for Chemical Assessments, chemical substances designated as High-Priority Substances during the prioritization process, and those chemical substances for which EPA has initiated a risk evaluation in response to manufacturer requests. Comments were due March 20, 2017; 87 comments were filed. Pursuant to new TSCA, EPA must publish the final rule in the Federal Register by June 22, 2017.
More information on the rule as proposed is available in our memorandum EPA Releases Proposed Chemical Risk Evaluation Process under New TSCA.