Lindsay McCormick is a Project Manager.
When EPA finalized its framework prioritization rule under TSCA last June, the agency deleted its proposed approach to identifying potential candidate chemicals for prioritization. EDF had supported EPA’s initial proposed rule, and EPA’s decision to delay this process to allow for additional stakeholder engagement tracks closely with the comments chemical industry groups submitted on that proposed rule.
EPA is now holding a public meeting on December 11th to discuss its proposed approaches and get input from stakeholders. As with the upcoming meeting on new chemical reviews, EPA is accepting questions ahead of the meeting.
In response, EDF submitted a number of questions to the agency on Monday, relating to our concerns in the following areas:
- EPA’s stated intention to significantly exceed its statutory minimum of designating 20 low-priority chemicals within the law’s specified timeframe.
- EPA’s passive approach to utilizing its new authorities to fill data gaps on chemicals before they enter the prioritization and risk evaluation processes.
- The need to ensure transparency with respect to health and safety studies and underlying data used by EPA to identify candidate chemicals for prioritization.
- Specific concerns regarding EPA’s proposed approaches, including to utilize Canada’s Chemicals Management Plan as a model and to use EPA’s Safer Chemicals Ingredient List (SCIL) as a basis for identifying low-priority chemicals.
Read our full list of questions here for more details.