According to a US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report the US Environmental Protection (EPA) will take 10 years to evaluate the 83 chemicals that it has placed on its high priority list. The report points out that EPA has failed to address the challenges resulting from the regulatory framework of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) under which the US EPA operates. TSCA places the burden of providing toxicity data on the EPA rather than industry. A TSCA reform bill introduced to the Senate on April 10, 2013 would improve EPA ability to collect health and safety information on chemicals (covered by the Food Packaging Forum, FPF article).

The US EPA has initiated 7 assessments in 2012 and will initiate another 18 assessments in the coming two years. The 83 chemicals are a selection of the 1235 potential candidate chemicals that were presented in the Method Document published in February 2012 by the EPA. These 1235 chemicals had been derived from a variety of sources listing hazardous chemicals including the Stockholm Convention on POPs, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the International Agency for research on Cancer monographs (IARC) and EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS).

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GAO report

TSCA Work Plan Chemicals: Method Document (EPA)

TSCA reform, industry comments (FPF)

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