James V. Aidala and Richard E. Engler, Ph.D., Quoted in Bloomberg Article “EPA Tackles Early Warning Alert System for Hazardous Chemicals”
On October 17, 2025, comments by James V. Aidala and Richard E. Engler, Ph.D., were featured in Bloomberg Law’s article regarding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recent completion of more than 3,000 corporate notices about chemicals’ substantial risks.
The corporate notices can give the EPA its first sign that a substance could be dangerous. They stem from the Toxic Substances Control Act’s requirement that chemical manufacturers, importers, processors, and distributors promptly notify the agency when they learn their chemical presents a substantial risk to people’s health or the environment. A company failing to do so can be fined $49,772 per day per violation.
The disclosure requirement became part of TSCA in 1976 to avoid situations like what happened with asbestos, when people became ill or died and society later learned that companies knew their chemical could be harmful, but failed to share that knowledge, said Jim Aidala, a senior government consultant with Bergeson & Campbell PC who formerly helped run the EPA’s chemicals and pesticide office.
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The best known incident involving substantial risk notices involves E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. Its alleged failure to report to EPA information it had about a birth defect in the child of a worker who’d been exposed to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), another PFAS, ultimately resulted in the company agreeing in 2005 to pay a $10.25 million fine and spend $6.25 million for supplemental environmental projects.
That incident also made the public far more aware of PFAS than they had been, Aidala said. PFAS are colloquially called “forever chemicals,” because some linger in the body and environment for decades.
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“8es get backed up because there is no statutory requirement that they be processed by EPA—only submitted,” said Richard Engler, director of chemistry at Bergeson & Campbell and another former EPA scientist.
It’s important that the agency process them and post them in its internal databases and the public ChemView database, he said. They’re an important part of the public’s right to know, Engler said.
The EPA said it’s established a workgroup to identify inefficiencies in the 8e program and develop solutions.