Inside EPA Features Comments From B&C “Chemical Regulation in 2018” Webinar
On February 21, 2018, the Inside EPA article, “Beck Suggests Trump Hiring Cap Undermines EPA’s TSCA Implementation,” included comments from James V. Aidala, Senior Government Affairs Consultant with Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. (B&C®) and Nancy B. Beck, Ph.D., D.A.B.T., Deputy Assistant Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP), made at the “Chemical Regulation in 2018: A Sneak Preview of Things to Come” Webinar.
Nancy Beck, the top Trump appointee in EPA’s toxics office, says lawmakers should have authorized staffing levels for the new Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) program as they did for a pesticide fee program years earlier, suggesting the administration’s government-wide hiring freeze is undermining the agency’s ability to implement TSCA.
Speaking on a recent webinar hosted by the law firm Bergeson & Campbell and media group Bloomberg/BNA, Beck bemoaned Congress’ failure when lawmakers wrote the 2016 TSCA revisions to provide the flexibility that the Pesticide Registration Improvement Extension Act (PRIA) provides the pesticides office, allowing it to hire full-time equivalents (FTEs) beyond agency staffing caps.
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Jim Aidala, a former toxics office chief now with Bergeson & Campbell, agreed with Beck’s comments. He added that while observing the multi-year TSCA reform drafting process, “for a while there it looked like most of the people writing TSCA amendments had not worked in the federal service. This is the kind of thing where you realize freezes, personnel ceilings and FTE counts are things that matter. And these were some of the things that were taken into account in” PRIA.
A recording is now available of “Chemical Regulation in 2018: A Sneak Preview of Things to Come,” the first webinar in the B&C/ Bloomberg Environment 2018 Chemical Policy Summit Series.