Articles

The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act significantly amended the Toxic Substances Control Act. The act, which has been in force for just over a year, made substantive changes to multiple sections of TSCA that are proving to be even more consequential than anticipated (new TSCA is identified as Pub. L. No. 114-182 and old TSCA was identified as Pub. L. No. 94-469). This paper, authored principally by former EPA officials and a practicing TSCA lawyer, all with long...

On May 30, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit responded to two petitions for review of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) conditional registration under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) of a nanosilver pesticide product and vacated that conditional registration. NRDC v. EPA, No. 15-72308. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Center for Food Safety (CFS), and the International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA)...

Among the many legal, regulatory, and policy issues being watched closely by pesticide registrants as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) long and contentious review of chlorpyrifos registrations continues is the controversy concerning when EPA may appropriately apply a tenfold uncertainty factor pursuant to the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA 10X). This issue centers around EPA’s novel and unprecedented use of epidemiological data and the statutory requirements that govern...

Climate change watchers know that October, 15, 2016, was a historic day for international climate action. On that day, nearly 200 countries reached an agreement to phase down use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) at the 28th Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol in Kigali, Rwanda. The meeting to discuss the Amendment took place from July 15-23, 2016. This seemingly impossible alignment of international interests reflects years of effort. This column summarizes this historic event and its...

In July 2017, the European Commission's (EC) Joint Research Center (JRC) published a report entitled Evaluation of the availability and applicability of computational approaches in the safety assessment of nanomaterials: Final report of the Nanocomput project.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made available on May 16, 2017, and requested comment on a draft guidance document, “Guidance on EPA’s Section 8(a) Information Gathering Rule on Nanomaterials in Commerce.” This column discusses the draft guidance.

On July 20, 2017, the Trump Administration published its Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. The Agenda includes a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) item (RIN 2070-AJ54) concerning the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Section 8(a) reporting rule for nanoscale materials.

Waters of the United States has been a “fluid” concept for years. It defines the jurisdictional limits of the authority of the United States under the Clean Water Act (CWA). President Trump’s Feb. 28, 2017, Executive Order (EO) directing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) to rescind and replace the Clean Water Rule (CWR) is the latest development to resolve the question of which surface waters and wetlands may be federally regulated...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued on Jan. 12, 2017, a final rule under Section 8(a) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) establishing reporting and recordkeeping requirements for certain discrete forms of chemical substances that are manufactured or processed at the nanoscale. This column summarizes the rule.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued in June final framework rules under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Each is summarized in the article.