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February 28, 2019

Wintry Mix of TSCA Predictions from February 20, 2019, Webinar

Lynn L. Bergeson Richard E. Engler, Ph.D.

On February 20, 2019, during a cold, snow-filled winter day, the rugged staff of Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. (B&C®) as well as several hearty senior U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials got together over some steaming cups of coffee and discussed the upcoming fate of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) during a Bloomberg-hosted, B&C-developed webinar:  Chemical Policy Summit Series Part V: Chemical Regulation After the Mid-Terms: What We Can Expect to See in 2019

In attendance were:  The Honorable Alexandra Dapolito Dunn, the newly appointed Assistant Administrator of EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP); Jeffery T. Morris, Ph.D., Director, Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT); Rick P. Keigwin, Jr., Director of the Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP); Beau Greenwood, Executive Vice President, Government Affairs, CropLife America; Lynn L. Bergeson, Managing Partner of B&C; and James V. Aidala, Senior Government Affairs Consultant, B&C.  Ms. Dunn, Dr. Morris, and Mr. Keigwin described their priorities in the webinar.  Ms. Dunn stated 2019 “is going to be one of those buckle-your-seat-belt kind of years” in relation to getting everything done as required under TSCA.  Some of the takeaways from that webinar are listed below. 

TSCA Milestones:  2019 and Beyond

Risk Evaluations:

  • EPA must complete the first ten risk evaluations by December 2019, with a possible extension up to June 2020; EPA may need to take advantage of the extension;
  • By April 2019, EPA will need to release the “20 high- and 20 low-” priority candidate chemicals;
  • EPA released its first draft chemical risk evaluation — Colour Index (C.I.) Pigment Violet 29 — on which many comments were submitted.  EPA realized that this selection was challenging given certain data ownership issues and restrictions on those data occasioned by European Union’s (EU) Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulation issues; therefore, this initial evaluation was not the best representation of how the other evaluations will be conducted (more information on the risk evaluation is available in our memo EPA Publishes First Draft TSCA Chemical Risk Evaluation);
  • EPA is using a new risk assessment program process called “Systematic Review” that has been used in non-risk assessment fields; EPA is the first agency to use this process.  EPA welcomes input on the process and stated that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will be reviewing this process as well;
  • In March 2019, EPA will release a proposed rule outlining how it will review and substantiate all Confidential Business Information (CBI) claims seeking to protect the specific chemical identities of substances on the confidential portion of the TSCA Inventory; and
  • EPA will be proposing its rule to regulate five persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic chemicals by June 2019; EPA will be using a different approach than what is typically used for risk assessments.

Approving New Chemicals:

  • EPA intends to explore its process for new chemical review to be more predictable and to make reviews final within 90 days;
  • EPA will post “frequently asked questions” documents to help chemical manufacturers submit clearer applications online;
  • EPA is urging pre-submission meetings between premanufacture notice (PMN) submitters and EPA staff prior to submitting a PMN for a new product to reduce agency time spent clarifying omissions; and
  • EPA has pledged to make all PMNs, all health and safety studies, attachments, amendments and other associated information available in public dockets.

B&C’s other upcoming seminars and webinars are available here.  Some other resources of interest are B&C’s newly minted TSCA Tutor™ Modular Training Program which provides live in-person training at a company’s site, live online training, and pre-recorded webinar training modules — all designed to offer expert, efficient, and essential TSCA training; as well as B&C’s All Things Chemical™ Podcasts, which provide intelligent, insightful conversation about everything related to industrial, pesticidal, and specialty chemicals and the law and business issues surrounding chemicals.