All Knowledge & Insights By Date

In a somewhat unexpected move, Congress enacted the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act of 2022 (MoCRA) on December 29, 2022, as part of the Omnibus Appropriations Act. MoCRA significantly strengthens the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) authority over cosmetic products. Key provisions are summarized in this article.

By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton   The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced on April 10, 2023, that it is inviting public comment on a draft Environmental Assessment (EA) and draft Plant Pest Risk Assessment (PPRA). 88 Fed. Reg. 21602. APHIS states that it produced these documents in response to a petition from Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc. seeking deregulation of a corn variety developed using genetic...

On April 6, 2023, NanoHarmony announced publication of a paper in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology entitled “Towards harmonisation of testing of nanomaterials for EU regulatory requirements on chemical safety — A proposal for further actions.” The paper provides an overview of the information requirements across different European Union (EU) regulatory areas. For each information requirement, experts identified potential needs for further action to accommodate...

On April 11, 2023, Chemical Processing quoted Lynn L. Bergeson, Managing Partner, Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. (B&C®) regarding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed rule to cut toxic emissions by 6,000 tons per year. The EPA estimated that chemical producers would incur about $501 million in total capital costs and approximately $190 million in total annualized costs to comply with updates to National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants, which the...

On April 6, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a suit brought by the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) to prevent Inhance Technologies USA (Inhance) from generating per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) when fluorinating plastic containers. As reported in our January 6, 2023, blog item, CEH and PEER sought a court order restraining Inhance from continued manufacture of PFAS in violation of a...

By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton   The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will hold training on May 23, 2023, on Generalized Read-Across (GenRA), a publicly available tool that uses an automated approach to make reproducible read-across predictions of toxicity. EPA states that read-across “is a commonly used data gap filling technique whereby endpoint information for one substance is used to predict the same endpoint for another substance, supported by structural or...

By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton   On March 23, 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) announced the release of its 2023 Multi-Year Program Plan (MYPP). The MYPP is used as an operational guide, setting forth BETO’s mission, goals, and strategic approach. It also serves as a resource to help manage and coordinate BETO’s activities and communicate its strategy to stakeholders and the public. The new plan identifies...

On April 5, 2023, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) convened an online information session as part of the consultation period regarding the proposal to restrict more than 10,000 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) under the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulation. The speakers during the information session explained how the REACH restriction process works, provided details regarding the restriction proposal, and described how...

By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton   The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) publicly released a report on March 27, 2023, entitled Sustainable Aviation Fuel: Agencies Should Track Progress toward Ambitious Federal Goals. According to GAO, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production and use in the United States have increased in recent years; this fuel is now used by airlines at two major commercial airports in California. GAO states that while U.S. production reached 15.8...

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) published a request for information (RFI) on April 5, 2023, seeking public input in updating the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) Research Strategy. 88 Fed. Reg. 20194. OSTP is soliciting public input from a wide variety of stakeholders, including individuals, industry, academia, research laboratories, nonprofits, and think tanks. OSTP states that it is interested in public input...