Articles

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'...

Two developments in the European Union in 2020 involving chemical regulations will almost certainly impact U.S. chemical stakeholders, according to Lynn L. Bergeson, managing partner of Bergeson & Campbell P.C. One initiative restricts certain chemicals in order to comply with the European Green Deal, while the other amends chemical disclosure requirements, she explains.

In early April, a Florida pond that sits atop phosphogypsum tailings sprung a leak. State authorities scrambled to keep the pond from collapsing and flooding the surrounding area with millions of gallons of contaminated water. This situation likely wasn’t top of mind on February 8, 2021, when a group of environmental protection advocates prepared and submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) a petition under Section 21 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The petition...

On April 16, 2021, the European Commission (EC) Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) posted two preliminary opinions for comment: Opinion on Gold (nano), Colloidal Gold (nano), Gold Thioethylamino Hyaluronic Acid (nano) and Acetyl heptapeptide-9 Colloidal gold (nano) and Opinion on Platinum (nano), Colloidal Platinum (nano) and Acetyl tetrapeptide-17 Colloidal Platinum (nano).

June 22 of this year will mark the fifth anniversary since President Obama signed the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act. Popularly still known by the name of the 40-year-old statute it replaced, the new version of the Toxic Substances Control Act had a vision to follow in reforming a system for evaluating and regulating chemicals in commerce that everyone, from industry to green NGOs to government officials, agreed was weak and ineffective. The new TSCA, promising to...

Lawyers counselling companies in the biotechnology, biopesticide and related crop protection and industrial biotechnology areas appreciate the critically important role federal agencies play in ensuring the success of start-up businesses. Federal agencies, including the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), among others, wield enormous power over businesses that require premarket product approval. While we product approval practitioners know...

If anyone on planet Earth thinks the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), as amended, is not commercially consequential, think again. The implementation of the 2016 amendments by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is triggering tremendous commercial disruption. The EPA’s March 8, 2021, announcement seeking comment on five final rules for persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) chemicals issued on January 6, 2021, and, importantly, granting a rare “No Action Assurance”...

As a new administration arrives in Washington, D.C., few things are certain except that 2021 is sure to be an eventful year. While underlying partisan jockeying and prospects for bipartisan cooperation will greatly affect what may happen in the more limited context of chemical regulation, the Biden administration has already laid out priorities on the environment that will surely influence the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) positions on climate change, the role of science, and...