Late yesterday, EDF joined fourteen other Petitioners in filing an Opening Brief in our case challenging EPA’s Prioritization Rule and Risk Evaluation Rule. The Brief was filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Our Brief argues that the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), as amended by the Lautenberg Act, requires EPA to comprehensively evaluate a chemical’s hazards and exposures arising from all of its “conditions of use,” a term defined under TSCA as encompassing the chemical’s entire lifecycle from manufacturing and processing to use and disposal. EPA is then to make a holistic determination of whether the chemical presents an unreasonable risk of injury to human health or the environment, including to potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulations. EPA’s Rules violate this requirement because EPA asserts unfettered discretion to exclude known or reasonably foreseen exposures and conditions of use from consideration, thereby ignoring potentially important contributors to a chemical’s overall risk. As a result, the Rules threaten to leave the public—especially vulnerable groups like children, pregnant women, and workers—as well as the environment inadequately protected from the potential risks posed by the thousands of chemicals to which we are exposed every day.
EPA’s response brief in the case is due to the Court on July 5, 2018. As this litigation proceeds, you can find more information – including all significant legal documents – on EDF’s website.