Articles

The implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) provisions relating to regulating persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemicals has been anything but smooth. On September 3, 2021, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it intends to initiate new PBT rulemaking and anticipates proposing new rules for five PBT chemicals subject to final risk management rules under TSCA Section 6(h). Additionally, and happily, the agency extended the compliance dates for the...

Food safety comes in many forms. Years ago, Congress passed the Food Quality Protection Act, amending the nation’s pesticide law to ensure a safer, more reliable, food supply. Consumer groups have urged Congress for years to modernize the nation’s food chemical law, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA), to address often-stated concerns with chemicals in food. Thus far, those concerns remain largely unaddressed by any legislative effort. Things may be changing. On July 26, 2021,...

To help achieve the ambitious goals of the European Green Deal, the European Commission adopted the chemicals strategy for sustainability in October 2020. The strategy suggests that the Commission can address pressing human health and environmental concerns by reinforcing Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 on the classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures – one of the EU’s cornerstones for regulating chemicals.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on June 10, 2021, three actions intended to protect communities from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), as covered in July’s column “EPA Announces Blockbuster PFAS Actions.” This column focuses on one of them: an ambitious proposal intended to obtain comprehensive data on more than 1,000 PFAS manufactured in or imported into the United States. As discussed in this article, the proposal’s scope is enormous.

By any independent standard, the US electronics industry is huge – it was worth over $300bn in 2019 – and growing annually. Would it surprise you to know that as big, essential and powerful as it is, a single rule issued in January of this year by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) nearly brought this sector to a halt? To this day, the rule is causing extraordinary disruption as electric and electronic device manufacturers, importers, processors, distributors and others scramble to...

When it comes to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not messing around. The agency announced on June 10, 2021, three actions intended to protect communities from PFAS. This article summarizes the actions.

Emerging tools enabled by nanotechnology, synthetic biology, and other innovative technologies are today increasingly supplementing the ploughs and tractors so emblematic of the agricultural community of the past. These precision farming tools are ensuring a sustainable food supply otherwise threatened by climate change and population growth, among other global challenges, while diminishing worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Genetically modified E coli is being used to produce...

Just as the industrial chemical community was getting into a predictable, somewhat comfortable groove regarding commercializing new chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decided to blow up the process. With it went any hope for business certainty in this highly volatile regulatory area.  While new administrations are entitled to shape policies to align with their agendas, the Biden Administration’s decision to rescind...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on April 29, 2021, that it will be “taking important steps under the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) to advance environmental justice, improve transparency, and increase access to environmental information.” The EPA plans to expand the scope of TRI reporting requirements to cover additional chemicals and facilities, including those not currently reporting ethylene oxide (EtO) releases. The agency also announced enhancements to its TRI...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) will be busy in 2021. Implementation of the 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) will continue to dominate the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT). In 2021, the EPA will need to complete outstanding risk evaluators of the 'first 10' chemicals and begin developing proposals for the section 6 risk management rules necessitated by the risk evaluations'...