All Knowledge & Insights By Date

The Environmental Law Institute (ELI), the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, and Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. (B&C®) held a one-day conference providing updates and insights regarding year three of the federal government’s implementation of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act that amended the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) on June 22, 2016.  Speakers provided an overview of the current...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has published statistics concerning its review of confidential business information (CBI) cases received between June 22 2016, and June 25, 2019.  The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, enacted in 2016, amended the CBI provisions of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  Since then, EPA “has established numerous new processes, systems, and procedures to enable submitters to provide the information...

On June 20, 2019, Senators Tom Udall (D-NM), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) sent a letter to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler requesting information on EPA’s implementation of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (Lautenberg Act).  The letter notes that the Lautenberg Act was intended to enact reforms addressing “longstanding structural problems” with...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On June 13, 2019, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the launch of the first stage of the Waves to Water Prize. A competition seeking to accelerate the development of wave energy powered desalination systems and address water security, the prize consists of four stages. The first concept stage is now open for applications until September 11, 2019. U.S. Under Secretary of Energy, Mark W. Menezes, stated that “[t]he start of the Waves to Water Prize marks an...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On June 14, 2019, U.S. Senators Deb Fischer (R-NE) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) introduced the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) Integrity Act of 2019. This Act aims at increasing transparency and predictability to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) small refinery exemption process under the RFS program. Requiring small refineries to petition for exemptions by June 1 of each year, according to the two leaders, this legislation would hold EPA accountable for...

By Lynn L. Bergeson The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) announced on June 17, 2019, a report entitled Toxic Consequences: Trump’s attacks on chemical safety put our health at risk. EDF notes that “[c]oncern over toxic exposures and a lack of confidence in the badly outdated chemical safety system” led to Congress passing the Frank R. Launtenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (Launtenberg Act) to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The bipartisan bill...

By Lynn L. Bergeson and Ligia Duarte Botelho, M.A. In June 2019, the European Commission (EC) Technical Expert Group (TEG) on Sustainable Finance, published its Report on EU Green Bond Standard. The report proposes the creation of a European Union (EU) Green Bond Standard (EU-GBS) to address barriers to market development of green financial products. Also proposing the establishment of a framework to facilitate sustainable investment -- “Taxonomy Regulation” -- TEG makes ten...

The European Commission’s (EC) Joint Research Center (JRC) published a press release on June 6, 2019, regarding its contribution to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) development of Test Guidelines for the safety assessment of nanomaterials.  According to the press release, scientists from JRC have actively participated in discussions of the OECD’s Working Party on Manufactured Nanomaterials (WPMN) since early on.  The press release...

The European Commission (EC) began a public consultation on June 12, 2019, on the Fitness Check Roadmap on Endocrine Disruptors. According to the EC, the Fitness Check will contribute to the assessment of whether chemicals legislation in the European Union (EU) delivers its objective to protect human health and the environment by minimizing the overall exposure to endocrine disruptors. The Fitness Check will include an analysis of how different provisions in the broad spectrum of EC...

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...