Attorneys Query EPA's TSCA Prioritization Approach After Low Risk Finding

摘要

Industry attorneys are questioning the prioritization approach EPA used to select the first 10 chemicals EPA is assessing as part of its new Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) program for existing chemicals, arguing that the selection of Pigment Violet 29 (PV29), which appears to be a low-risk chemical, begs the question of how it could be deemed a priority. "It's rather puzzling this showed up on the [TSCA] work plan in the first place, it's supposed to be high-risk substances," Herb Estreicher, a partner with Keller and Heckman, said during the law firm's Dec. 12 webinar. "It's rather puzzling to me this showed up ... and of all the chemicals [on the work plan of roughly 90 substances], this was one of the [first] 10 that was picked" for evaluation by EPA. EPA's recently released PV29 draft assessment is the first such assessment of an existing chemical under TSCA as revised by Congress in 2016. The chemical is included in the group of 10 that the Obama EPA selected shortly before leaving office that would be the first assessed under the new requirements of TSCA for existing chemicals, those that were on the market when the original TSCA took effect in 1976. As directed in the revised statute, EPA selected the first 10 high priority chemicals for risk evaluation from its 2012 TSCA work plan, a list of roughly 90 existing chemicals created by the Obama EPA as it sought to more vigorously enforce existing TSCA in the face of longstanding inertia in Congress.