Charles M. Auer Quoted By Inside EPA Regarding Reorganization Of EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics
On June 4, 2018, Charles M. Auer, Senior Regulatory and Policy Advisor with Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. (B&C®), was quoted in the Inside EPA article “Eying 2018 Deadline, EPA Taps New Division Heads For Reorganized OPPT.”
The new reorganization plan is winning approval from former officials. Charles Auer, former director of OPPT and now with the law firm of Bergeson & Campbell, wrote in a recent blog post that dividing the offices to focus on new and existing chemicals generally “makes sense,” he wrote.
For example, “merging the existing chemicals function of the Chemical Control Division (CCD) with those of the National Program Chemicals Division (NPCD) into [the ECMD] makes sense. The existing NPCD branches that cover legacy chemical issues (e.g., lead, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), mercury, and asbestos) will presumably become risk management branches tasked with overseeing risk management activities for those chemicals under the amended [TSCA].”
Further, Auer approves of the plan’s creation of the separate NCMD, which he writes “also makes sense in light of the challenges encountered by the office in its early implementation of Section 5 under new TSCA.”
Still, he cautions that EPA’s plan to hire new scientists could be challenging, and could hinge on the office “receiving adequate hiring authority to meet its scientific needs and then being able to locate and hire the needed technical experts,” he writes. “While Dr. Morris seems optimistic regarding the first, the second will present a major challenge to the Office in securing technical expertise in the areas in demand.”
See – https://insideepa.com/daily-news/eying-2018-deadline-epa-taps-new-division-heads-reorganized-oppt (subscription required)