Richard E. Engler, Ph.D., Quoted in Bloomberg Law Article “EPA Drops Policy Chemical Makers Use to Correct Critical List”

On Feburary 28, 2022, Richard E. Engler, Ph.D., Director of Chemistry with Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. (B&C^®), was quoted by Bloomberg Law regarding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) announcement that, as of April 26, it will no longer process chemical manufacturers’ requests to correct the specific ways chemicals on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) inventory are identified.

If the EPA is concerned that companies are using correction requests to add new chemicals to the inventory, it could issue guidance describing the information needed to support a correction request, said Richard Engler, director of chemistry for Bergeson and Campbell PC.

Companies don’t routinely ask for corrections unless they have a compelling reason to do so, said Engler, whose law firm counsels the TSCA New Chemicals Coalition (NCC).

The language chemists use to distinguish chemicals changes over time. U.S. companies realized some changes were needed to the TSCA inventory as they complied with the 2006 European REACH, or registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals, regulation, he said.

Chemical company mergers and acquisitions also can trigger audits that discover errors or identities that no longer fit with current practice, Engler said.

Audits have always made sense when a company is considering a merger or acquisition, Prero said. The EPA’s announcement offers another incentive to do them, but “making the fix will not be not so easy,” he said.

See – https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/epa-drops-policy-chemical-makers-use-to-correct-critical-list (subscription required)