All Things Chemical® Podcast

This week, I sat down with Scott Fulton, President of the Environmental Law Institute, on the occasion of ELI’s 50th anniversary. Scott is ELI’s 5th President. As a former ELI Board member myself and a practicing lawyer in the environmental space, I have known Scott for years given his many high profile roles as a former EPA General Counsel, Assistant Chief of the Environmental Enforcement Section at the U.S. Department of Justice, among other prominent positions. In our...

This week, I sat down with Dr. Lisa E. Friedersdorf, the Director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (or NNCO) to discuss all things nano. For anyone in the nano space, Lisa is a rock star and well known to all. To those less familiar, Lisa joined NNCO several years ago, having served as the Associate Director of the Materials Research Center at Lehigh University and Director of the Industry Liaison Program. Lisa was also Director of the Virginia Nanotechnology...

Last October, at the Annual Meeting of the International Bar Association in Rome, I was fortunate enough to be introduced to Katherine Meighan, the General Counsel of IFAD, the International Fund for Agricultural Development.  Katherine gave an eye-opening presentation at the IBA conference on IFAD’s efforts to address the issue of food security and world hunger, and I knew I had to have her on the podcast to share her message and to dig deeper into her work as General...

This week, I sat down with a highly-regarded member of the environmental NGO community, Eric Schaeffer, who currently serves as the Executive Director of the Environmental Integrity Project, which he co-founded in 2002. Previously, Eric worked for more than a decade at EPA, including a five-year stint as the Director of EPA’s Office of Civil Enforcement, which, as you will hear in our conversation, was a very formative time for his thinking. At a time when some news outlets and EPA detractors...

I am so pleased to present a very special guest this week, the Assistant Administrator for EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP):  Alexandra Dunn.  Alex’s professional training could not be more perfect.  Alex is a lawyer and has practiced in both the private and non-profit sectors.  Alex has taught environmental law at several law schools and, while Dean of Environmental Law Programs at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, focused...

We have a repeat guest this week: fan favorite, Dr. Richard Engler, Bergeson & Campbell’s Director of Chemistry and Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) guru-in-residence.  I sat down with Rich to find out more about so-called “New Chemicals” and the challenges faced by not only new chemical manufacturers, but also by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in trying to fulfill its duties as a regulatory gatekeeper. As a seasoned veteran of EPA himself, where he worked for...

This week, I invited my friend and business colleague, the former U.S. Ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, into the studio to talk about what every CEO needs to know about the world right now. I know I say this a lot, but it is really true this time around:  We covered a lot of ground in this conversation.  Howard provides his perspective on what to pay attention to with regard to Brexit, energy policy, climate change, trade, the globalized economy, and the 2020 presidential...

This week, I sat down with my colleague Jim Aidala, a Senior Government Affairs Consultant here at the firm, to discuss 2019 and the state of industrial and agricultural chemical regulation: what is to come, what to expect, and how we can prepare for it. We begin, of course, by looking at 2018, chiefly, the appointment and confirmation of Alexandra Dunn, the new EPA Assistant Administrator in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, the office tasked with administering TSCA and...

This week, we offer something a little different. My colleague Christopher Bryant, a senior regulatory consultant here at the firm, invited Daniella Taveau and Daniel Pearson into our studio to sit down and talk about trade issues. As you will hear, their conversation ranged far and wide, hitting upon all aspects of the trade discussion which might be relevant to anyone working in the chemical manufacturing space. Listeners will hear about developing a historical context in...

This week, I sat down with my colleague Sheryl Dolan, a senior regulatory consultant here at Bergeson & Campbell, to discuss all things pesticides: past, present, and future. In our discussion, Sheryl provides the historical and legal/regulatory background necessary to understand the current state of pesticide regulation, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) manages under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, or FIFRA, as we like to call it. Among other...

Recently, the European Commission kicked-off a process to evaluate and likely revise the current EU Food Contact Materials (FCM) legislation. Now, this is a big deal for any stakeholders in this space—domestic or European -- considering that the current legislation has been in in-place for many years and the proliferation of national standards has greatly complicated an already complex area. That is why I was excited when Renato Addis, of the Brussels-based regulatory consulting firm EPPA and...

This week, I took part in a roundtable discussion about biobased products with my colleagues Kathleen Roberts and Dr. Rich Engler. Over the last several years, there has been a significant trend towards the use of renewable, bio-based chemicals. Although these chemicals often have similar, if not identical, functionalities as the non-renewable, fossil-based chemical that they are intended to replace, there are a number of regulatory challenges in bringing these to market. In this conversation,...

This week, I sat down with Karin Baron, a senior regulatory consultant here at Bergeson & Campbell and all around expert on chemical product labeling to discuss recent developments pertinent to the United States Hazard Communication Standard (HCS). These regulatory developments have been proposed to bring the HCS more in line with GHS, the Global Hazard Communication Standard. Karin unpacks this complex but really important area of the law and focuses on the aspirational and important goals...

Download transcript. Recently, we published a 3 part article with Bloomberg News entitled: New Chemicals Under New TSCA—Stalled Commercialization. This week, I sat down with Charles Auer, a Senior Regulatory and Policy advisor here at the firm, and Dr. Richard Engler, our Director of Chemistry, two of my co-authors on this article to talk about it. Our thesis is simple: EPA’s interpretation of our brand new industrial chemical law, the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the...

Download transcript. This week, I sat down with Dr. Richard Engler, our Director of Chemistry, to discuss Confidential Business Information (CBI). CBI is both a term of art under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and can be understood broadly to be anything from trade secrets to you know, the secret sauce of a chemical formulation that makes a product profitable. In our conversation, we focused on how this concept of CBI functions under TSCA and how businesses need to handle CBI during the...

Download transcript. This week, I sat down with Michael Wenk, one of our senior regulatory consultants, to discuss his new book Chemical Regulation in the Middle East. Michael’s book focuses on eight countries in the Middle East that have a combination of well developed and emerging chemical regulatory schemes. His book provides a comprehensive examination of the main chemical management laws in force for each particular country, and summarizes general trends and issues facing the region as a...

Download transcript. This week, I got to have a roundtable discussion with several of my colleagues about a Strategic Research Plan released by the EPA earlier this summer, outlining their approach to reduce and replace “vertebrate” testing. What we’re really talking about, of course, is animal testing. In keeping with the commitment outlined in 2016’s Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the EPA proposes several so-called New Approach Methodologies, or NAMs, which they hope will be able...

Hi, this is Lynn Bergeson of Bergeson & Campbell in Washington, D.C. I'm here to announce that we have launched a podcast. It's called All Things Chemical. And whether you are a lawyer in the chemical space, a scientist or a manager, or a CEO of a Fortune 50 chemical company, you will want to listen up. Starting November 1st we will be releasing a podcast every other week. We're going to be dealing with a whole host of really interesting issues including animal testing and alternatives to...