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August 6, 2021

EPA Will Not Extend August 16, 2021, Comment Period Related to Webinar on Tiered Data Reporting Rule under TSCA

Lynn L. BergesonCarla N. Hutton

According to a memorandum posted in Docket ID EPA-HQ-OPPT-2021-0436, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will not extend the comment period stemming from the July 27, 2021, public webinar on the development of a proposed rule under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to implement a tiered data collection strategy intended to inform EPA’s prioritization, risk evaluation, and risk management activities for chemical substances or mixtures. As reported in our July 29, 2021, memorandum, EPA is exploring a data reporting rule that is tiered to specific stages of the TSCA existing chemicals program: identifying a pool of substances as potential candidates for prioritization; selecting candidate chemicals for and completing the prioritization process; and assessing high-priority substances through a robust risk evaluation that may be followed by risk management actions (depending on the outcome of the risk evaluation). According to the memorandum posted in the docket, the August 16, 2021, deadline is for EPA’s use in the current stage of its rulemaking development. While EPA will consider later comments as it continues to develop the proposed rule, EPA states that “comments submitted at this point will be especially useful to EPA and stand a greater chance of influencing the rulemaking.” Because there will be other opportunities to comment on the tiered data reporting rule, including during the public comment period following publication of the proposed rule, EPA “do[es] not believe that an extension of the comment period is necessary.”