Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist. Allison Tracy is a Chemicals Policy Fellow.
A major initiative of EPA’s toxics office finally made it across the finish line yesterday when EPA posted a pre-publication copy of the final rule upgrading its chemical reporting system under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The process took over 16 months just to get from the draft of the proposed rule to yesterday’s final rule, with EPA having to endure not one but two nearly six-month regulatory reviews by the Office of Management and Budget.
The wait was largely worth it: EPA’s new program – renamed the Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rule – significantly advances chemical production and use reporting relative to its predecessor, the more arcane-sounding Inventory Update Reporting (IUR) rule. Most, though not all, of the critical elements EPA proposed last year made it through to the final rule. The catch is we’ll have to wait until 2016 for the program to reach its full potential. Read More