The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has made several announcements in October 2021 pertaining to how the agency’s offices assess chemical safety and uphold scientific integrity on the US market.
In a press release on October 14, the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) announced the establishment of two new science-policy advisory councils, the New Chemicals Advisory Committee and the OCSPP Science Policy Council. The OCSPP Science Policy Council “will be chaired by a science policy advisor, a newly created role that will… provide guidance on emerging science policy and scientific integrity matters.” According to the press release, the New Chemicals Advisory Committee will serve within the New Chemicals Division of the OCSPP “as an advisory body to review both scientific and science policy issues related to new chemical submissions subject to the Toxic Substances Control Act [TSCA].”
In addition to the new advisory positions, the EPA is updating how it gathers information for human health risk assessments by allowing input “to the decision-making process to be provided by EPA subject matter experts outside of the New Chemicals Division.” And is adding more record keeping requirements about how such decisions are made. Earlier this year four whistleblowers alleged the EPA was pressuring scientists “to minimize or remove evidence of potential adverse effects of the chemicals, including neurological effects, birth defects, and cancer” (FPF reported).
As part of the EPA’s efforts to increase openness and efficiency, the agency has been reviewing substances currently listed by some manufacturers as confidential. Confidential substances have their exact chemical identity obscured from the public. After review, 377 substances recently lost their confidentiality status because “at least one manufacturer did not request that each of these chemical identities be kept confidential, effectively saying it is not a secret that the chemical is in U.S. commerce.” 26 of the declassified chemicals are listed in the Food Packaging Forum’s Food Contact Chemicals Database (FCCdb), two of which are substances of potential concern according to work by the European Union. As of August 2021, there are about 86,000 chemicals on the TSCA Inventory list with nearly 42,000 chemicals registered as actively used on the US market.
Some of those chemicals, the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), have been under particular scrutiny recently by scientists and civil society organizations (FPF reported, also here and here). On October 18, 2021, EPA Administrator Michael Regan announced the release of a “comprehensive national PFAS strategy.” Much of the new strategy focuses on monitoring and enforcement of PFAS levels in local water supplies but also calls for a review of previous PFAS actions taken under the TSCA “to address those that are insufficiently protective.” Some actions already mentioned include a strengthened review process before any new PFAS can enter the market and to potentially impose a review for any manufacturing applications that the EPA had previously allowed but the manufacturers later abandoned.
Civil society organizations Safer States and Toxic Free Future have said the new plan is a step in the right direction but “falls far short of preventing new PFAS contamination.” Individual US states and retailers have been phasing out products containing PFAS, and the governor of New Mexico has asked the EPA to officially list PFAS as hazardous waste (FPF reported, also here and here).
References
EPA (October 14, 2021). “EPA Announces Next Steps to Enhance Scientific Integrity and Strengthen New Chemical Safety Reviews.”
EPA (October 15, 2021). “Updates to Confidential Status of Chemicals on the TSCA Inventory.”
EPA (October 18, 2021). “EPA Administrator Regan Announces Comprehensive National Strategy to Confront PFAS Pollution.”
EPA Council on PFAS (October 18, 2021). “PFAS Strategic Roadmap: EPA’s Commitments to Action 2021-2024.”
Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families (October 18, 2021). “The Environmental Protection Agency announces limited PFAS roadmap.”
Read More
EPA (August 2021). “About the TSCA Chemical Substance Inventory.”
Kelly Franklin (October 18, 2021). “US EPA releases ‘comprehensive’ PFAS roadmap.” Chemical Watch
Kelly Franklin (October 14, 2021). “EPA acts to ‘strengthen’ TSCA new chemical reviews.” Chemical Watch
