Decision epitomizes administration’s disdain for public health protection
(Washington, DC – January 14, 2021) Tomorrow, the Trump EPA will announce the formal withdrawal of proposed bans on high-risk uses of the dangerous chemicals methylene chloride, trichloroethylene, and N-methylpyrrolidone. By taking this action, the Trump EPA seeks to prevent the new administration from finalizing any of these bans without starting the process over.
“It appears that blocking these bans and denying crucial protections to workers and consumers for four years was not enough for the Trump EPA. This shameful move that epitomizes the Trump EPA’s concerted attacks on public health is a transparent attempt to further constrain the incoming administration. It is yet another stain on Mr. Wheeler’s dismal record,” said Dr. Richard Denison, Lead Senior Scientist, EDF Health. “We are counting down the days until the EPA’s decisions, once again, reflect its mission to protect health and the environment.”
Background:
Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.
In recent weeks EPA has issued for public comment significant modifications to its draft risk evaluations under the Toxic Substances Control Act for two chemicals: Pigment Violet 29 (PV29) and 1,4-dioxane. Because EPA initially provided relatively brief comment periods on the modifications, both were subject to requests for extensions of the comment period.
The table below tells the story of how these two requests fared under the Trump EPA. Read More
Jennifer McPartland, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist. Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.
Today the Trump Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued its final risk evaluation for trichloroethylene (TCE). It largely tracks the agency’s draft document, retaining numerous flaws that severely understate the highly toxic chemical’s risks to workers, the general public and those most susceptible to its health impacts.
Among the evaluation’s most serious deficiencies is the abandonment of a bedrock principle of chemical risk assessment: that risk estimates be based on the most sensitive health effect. Sadly, the final document retains the unprotective approach the Trump White House forced EPA to adopt, as reported in detail by Elizabeth Shogren of Reveal News.
Exposure to TCE is ubiquitous, coming from ambient and indoor air, vapor intrusion from contaminated sites, groundwater and drinking water wells, and food – yet EPA’s evaluation ignores or downplays each of these exposure sources and pathways.
Below we summarize some of the major concerns in EPA’s evaluation that we addressed in detail in our comments.
One silver lining: Despite its glaring deficiencies, the risk evaluation did find that the great majority of TCE’s conditions of use present unreasonable risks—even as it grossly understated the extent of those risks. As a result, EPA must now proceed to regulate those activities, providing the new Administration an opportunity to rectify the serious problems created by the Trump EPA. Read More
Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.
Today Environmental Defense Fund, Earthjustice, Natural Resources Defense Council, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Union of Concerned Scientists filed comments on EPA’s list of nominees for appointment to its Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC). The SACC conducts peer reviews of chemical risk evaluations EPA conducts under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). EPA can rectify this sad state of affairs by excluding these and any other conflicted individuals under consideration from membership on the SACC when EPA adds new members.
Our comments identified 19 nominees that have serious actual or potential conflicts of interest that should disqualify them from being appointed to the SACC. Unfortunately, their inclusion in EPA’s list of nominees suggests either that EPA has not conducted even the most cursory of conflict-of-interest screenings of these nominees, or that the agency intends to flout conflict-of-interest concerns and skew the balance of its science advisors even further in its drive to prioritize the interests of industry over public health and environmental protection. The most recent example of this is EPA’s appointments or elevation of members on the agency’s Science Advisory Board earlier this month.
Over the past several months, EPA received a slew of nominations for SACC membership of individuals that are employed either by companies with direct financial interest in specific chemicals or related science policy issues that fall within the remit of the SACC, or by consulting firms hired by those companies or their trade associations to represent their interests before EPA.
As extensively documented in the comments we submitted today, these individuals should not be appointed to the SACC because they trigger one or both of the federal requirements for excluding individuals from membership on federal advisory groups: having potential or actual conflicts of interest, or creating an appearance of a lack of impartiality. Read More
Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.
What a mess. That’s the best that can be said from the outside about the process EPA has followed to decide which companies are to pay fees to help defray the agency’s costs of conducting risk evaluations for the next 20 chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).[pullquote]EPA’s steps to endanger its ability to collect the fees under TSCA that Congress mandated border on self-sabotage.[/pullquote]
These fees were set forth in EPA’s final TSCA fees rule issued in October 2018. The total fee assigned to each of the next 20 chemicals for which risk evaluations are now underway was set at $1.35 million. That fee is to be paid by manufacturers (including importers) of a chemical. TSCA provided EPA with authority to charge processors of these chemicals a fee as well, but the agency opted to exclude processors from such fees in its final rule (see p. 52,696). EPA also opted not to charge fees to cover any of the costs it incurred for the first 10 risk evaluations (see p. 52,708 of the fees rule), although it had authority to do so.
Last week EPA issued what it calls its “interim final list” of companies obligated to pay fees to cover the costs of the next 20 risk evaluations. The list is dramatically scaled-back from the agency’s earlier list, and it is impossible for the public to understand the basis for the changes. That is in no small part due to the convoluted, opaque, and legally suspect process EPA has followed. Read More