All Knowledge & Insights By Date

On April 24, 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced that the agencies prevented a significant number of shipments of illegal health products from entering the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and the San Francisco International Airport (SFO). The products at issue were not registered with EPA, including Virus Shut Out products.  EPA previously announced on March 25, 2020, that EPA and CBP had...

On April 27, 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the draft risk evaluation of perchloroethylene. According to EPA, it reviewed 68 conditions of use and preliminarily found unreasonable risk to workers, occupational non-users (ONUs), consumers, bystanders, and the environment from certain uses. EPA will use feedback received from the peer review and public comment process to inform the final risk evaluation. EPA notes that if its final risk evaluation finds there...

The EPA’s amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act reporting requirements have increased the need for chemical stakeholders to manage actively supply chain communications. Lynn L. Bergeson, owner and managing partner of Bergeson & Campbell P.C., explores the upsides to be realized through these communications and the perils of failing to seize them. Download a PDF of this article here....

On April 23, 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that pollution traveling indirectly to rivers and streams through groundwater can be covered by the Clean Water Act’s (CWA) permitting requirements.  The case, County of Maui, Hawaii v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, et al, 590 U.S. (2020), concerned whether pollutants discharged from a point source into groundwater, a non-point source, and then conveyed into navigable waters fall within permitting requirements of the CWA.  In a 6-3 Opinion...

On April 27, 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the draft risk evaluation of perchloroethylene.  Perchloroethylene is the last of the first ten chemicals to undergo risk evaluation under the amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  EPA’s draft risk evaluation preliminarily found unreasonable risk to workers, occupational non-users, consumers, bystanders, and the environment from certain uses.  EPA states that the primary health risk identified in the draft...

Under the amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has authority to collect fees from chemical manufacturers and importers to defray a portion of the EPA costs associated with implementation efforts. The EPA fees rule, which became effective on October 18, 2018, required payment of fees for eight categories of fee-triggering events under TSCA, including EPA-initiated risk evaluations under TSCA Section 6. As part of the final fees rule, EPA...

On April 20, 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that EPA Administrator Wheeler has requested that the Science Advisory Board (SAB) provide feedback on research needs concerning SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19).  This research is intended to help EPA understand and mitigate the environmental and human health impacts from COVID-19, and identifies EPA research that is already underway as well as new EPA research that has been proposed.  EPA issued...

On April 23, 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it is continuing efforts to provide critical information on surface disinfectant products that can be used against SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19.  EPA states that it now has nearly 400 products that have qualified to be effective against SARS-CoV-2.  EPA also published an overview of its actions and resources related to disinfection against the novel coronavirus. EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and...

By Lynn L. Bergeson and Ligia Duarte Botelho, M.A. On April 17, 2020, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary, Sonny Perdue, announced $19 billion to farmers and ranchers as part of its COVID-19 relief program. Aimed at providing critical support in maintaining the integrity of the U.S. food supply chain and ensuring that every American has access to the food needed, the funds will be used not only to directly support farmers and ranchers, but...

By Lynn L. Bergeson and Ligia Duarte Botelho, M.A. In March 2020, a paper by master’s degree student Anastasia Prosina titled “Algae-Based Printer Ink as the Way to Foster In-Situ Resource Utilization in Habitation Structures” was published in ResearchGate. Prosina’s paper, submitted to Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture (SICSA), proposes that the most feasible long-term habitat off-Earth will consist of a 3D printed mixture of algae and regolith, the...