EDF Health

Trump EPA grossly understates workers’ risks to 1,4-dioxane while ignoring those to the general public

By / Published: July 22, 2019

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

On Friday, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) filed extensive comments on a draft risk evaluation for the likely human carcinogen 1,4-dioxane EPA issued on July 1.  While the formal public comment period runs until August 30, Friday was the deadline EPA set for comments if submitters want them to be considered by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC), which will be conducting peer review of the draft risk evaluations for this chemical and another, the flame retardant hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD), next week.

In its draft risk evaluation for 1,4-dioxane, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has grossly understated the risks that workers and the environment face from exposure to the chemical.  EPA has also abdicated its responsibility under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to identify and evaluate the risks the chemical presents to consumers and the general population by excluding from its risk evaluation conditions of use and exposures that are known or reasonably foreseen.  EPA has not met its mandatory duty under TSCA to identify and evaluate the risks to vulnerable subpopulations, falsely asserting there is no evidence that certain subpopulations are or may be more susceptible to adverse effects from exposure to the chemical.  EPA has utterly failed to utilize the enhanced authorities Congress granted it in 2016 to ensure that it has or obtains robust information on 1,4-dioxane’s uses, hazards and exposures, resulting in serious information and analytic gaps and deficiencies that severely undermine the scientific quality of its risk evaluation.

EDF’s comments raised numerous major concerns with EPA’s draft.  Among them are the following (see the noted section of the full comments for the details):

  • EPA has ignored evidence that some subpopulations are or may be more susceptible to 1,4-dioxane exposures than the general population (see section 1.A).
  • EPA has distorted OSHA requirements and over-relied on personal protective equipment, ignoring its real-world limitations (see section 1.B).
  • EPA has, without scientific basis, sought to sow doubt on the use of a linear, non-threshold model for 1,4-dioxane’s carcinogenicity, an approach that reflects longstanding agency policy and consensus in the scientific community (see section 1.D).
  • EPA has dismissed the liver tumors observed in female mice in the key oral cancer study it uses to extrapolate dermal cancer risks. Its insufficient rationale ignores the IRIS program’s basis for including these tumors and its determination that they are the most sensitive endpoint, which has been affirmed through peer review.  As a result, cancer risk is significantly understated, a concern also noted by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. (See section 1.E.ii.)
  • EPA has excluded all exposures and risks to consumers (and to workers from at least one use), based on 1,4-dioxane’s presence in such products as a byproduct rather than being intentionally used, a distinction without any basis in science (see section 2.A).
  • EPA has excluded from its risk evaluation all general population exposures to 1,4 dioxane, based on EPA’s unsupported assertion that existing regulatory programs under other statutes EPA administers have addressed or are in the process of addressing potential risks of 1,4-dioxane in all media pathways (see section 2.B).
  • In several instances, EPA’s decisions are inconsistent with Agency guidelines (see section 4.B.i).
  • EPA fails to consider combined exposures to workers from different routes and sources (see section 4.B.ii).
  • EPA has significantly understated the extent of risks to workers it has identified (see section 5).
  • EPA’s “expectation” of compliance with existing laws and standards as a basis for not finding unreasonable risk is unwarranted (see section 6.A).
  • EPA finds no unreasonable risk even when the high-end risk exceeds relevant benchmarks, an approach that is not adequately protective (see section 6.B).
  • EPA’s allowance of a 1 in 10,000 cancer risk for workers is a major and unwarranted deviation from longstanding agency policy and practice to regulate upon finding cancer risks on the order of 1 in 1 million (see section 6.C).
  • EPA’s systematic review to support the risk evaluation is flawed and not reflective of best practices (see section 7).

 

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Hey Trump EPA, your extreme bias in favor of the chemical industry is showing again

By / Published: July 2, 2019

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

[See UPDATE in brackets below.]

The Trump Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has just released drafts of two more chemical risk evaluations it has conducted under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  One is for the likely human carcinogen and neurotoxicant 1,4-dioxane, which contaminates public water systems serving more than 7 million Americans in 27 states at levels exceeding the level EPA has traditionally (until now) aimed to meet for general population exposures.  The other is for the flame retardant hexabromocyclododecane, or HBCD, a persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemical – toxic to human development and highly acutely and chronically toxic to aquatic organisms – that has been banned or heavily restricted in most of the rest of the developed world.

As might have been expected of the Trump EPA, the draft risk evaluations wholly exonerate HBCD and largely do so for 1,4-dioxane.  Especially in the latter case, EPA achieves its improbable finding through quite a sleight of hand:  EPA simply excludes most exposures to the chemical from the scope of its risk evaluation.[pullquote]Trump EPA political appointees have repeatedly argued that the agency needs to be doing a better job at “risk communication.”  I guess we now know what that means.[/pullquote]

Once finalized, EPA’s determinations that these chemicals “do not present an unreasonable risk” will mean it has no obligation or authority to impose any restrictions on their manufacture, processing, distribution, use, recycling or disposal.

We will be looking at these documents more closely in the very limited time EPA has provided for the public to review and comment on them.  But I want to draw attention right off the bat to a telling aspect of how the Trump EPA has presented its risk determination for 1,4-dioxane.

Read More »

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EDF files comments on two EPA proposals affecting EPA’s and the public’s access to chemical information under TSCA

By / Published: June 25, 2019

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

Yesterday Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) filed comments on two EPA proposals (here and here) that will have major impacts on what chemical information EPA obtains and the public has access to.  While EPA risk evaluations and risk management actions (such as they are) often garner the lion’s share of stakeholder attention, the 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) also made sweeping changes to EPA’s authority and duty to obtain better information on chemical uses, hazards and exposures, and to rein in rampant industry claims aimed at keeping much of that information hidden from public view.

As readers of this blog know, the extent of chemical information available to the agency and disclosed to the public has been a major point of controversy under the Trump EPA.  Three years after passage of the reforms to TSCA, EPA has yet to use its expanded information authorities even once, despite major data gaps for the chemicals it is prioritizing and evaluating.  In some cases, EPA has asked companies to voluntarily submit information without any safeguards against selective reporting.  EPA has then sought to deny public access even to submitted health and safety studies, arguing they are confidential despite TSCA’s clear prohibition on protecting such information from public disclosure; see here and here.

So EPA proposals that directly affect both what information is submitted to EPA and public access to it warrant serious scrutiny.  I’ll describe both proposals below, but as a preview I first want to highlight some of the key themes detailed in EDF’s comments:

  • EPA continues to resist acknowledging that the 2016 TSCA reforms changed the substantive standard governing confidentiality by imposing new requirements on top of those EPA has relied on in the past in regulations it promulgated pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In both proposals, EPA must acknowledge the change and incorporate all of the law’s new requirements, which Congress enacted to place new limits on what information is eligible for protection from public disclosure.
  • In one of its proposals, EPA has proposed welcome changes that appear intended to make EPA’s review of confidentiality claims more efficient, by clarifying what companies can and cannot claim as confidential and what substantiation they need to provide to support their claims. However, it falls short of that goal and omits several key provisions that must be incorporated when the proposal is finalized.
  • The other proposal is far less robust and would continue to rely on obsolete regulatory provisions that do not reflect the law’s new requirements. As a result, it is also wholly inconsistent with the first proposal even with respect to the analogous procedures for claim assertion, substantiation and EPA review.
  • In the name of burden reduction, EPA has proposed to continue existing exemptions from chemical information reporting, and to add major new exemptions. If finalized, these exemptions will negatively impact EPA’s access to information on chemicals’ conditions of use, releases and potential exposures that it needs to carry out its duties under reformed TSCA.  The consequences of EPA’s failure to obtain robust information on chemicals it is reviewing were amply demonstrated in critical comments ($) the agency received at last week’s meeting of EPA’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC) held to peer review EPA’s first draft risk evaluation under TSCA.

Read More »

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The Trump EPA is setting back chemicals policies by decades

By / Published: June 13, 2019

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.


Tacoma, WA 1972

As we approach the third anniversary of the historic passage of bipartisan legislation to overhaul our nation’s broken chemical safety system, we’re hearing that political appointees at the agency are gearing up to celebrate their “successes” in implementing the law.[pullquote]Even more disturbing than its individual actions are the methodical steps the Trump EPA is taking to dismantle decades of progress in our country’s chemicals policies.[/pullquote]

While the chemical industry may well have things to celebrate, it’s simply not the case for the rest of us:  Comments from former top EPA officials, members of Congress, state and local governments, labor groups, firefighters, water utilities, public health groups, and a broad range of environmental groups make crystal clear that there’s nothing warranting celebration.  EPA’s actions are threatening the health of American families.

But as I reflect on how implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) has gone off the rails under the Trump EPA, even more disturbing than its individual actions are the methodical steps it is taking to dismantle decades of progress in our country’s chemicals policies.  In this post, I’ll briefly highlight five such policies and how this EPA is undermining them:

  • Pollution prevention
  • Inherent safety and hazard reduction
  • Protection of vulnerable subpopulations and environmental justice
  • Holistic, real-world risk assessment
  • Public right to know

Read More »

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The Trump EPA is illegally denying requests for public files on new chemicals

By / Published: June 3, 2019

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

For some time now, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has been requesting “public files” of new chemical notices the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) receives under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  The process is kludge-y to say the least.  We have to email our request to EPA’s Docket Center, and, typically, several weeks later the staff there copy the files that staff in the TSCA office have given them in response to our request onto a CD-ROM and snail-mail it to us.

This, despite the fact that EPA’s own regulations (see here and here) state unequivocally that EPA is to promptly make new chemicals’ premanufacture notifications (PMNs) and associated documents broadly available to the general public by posting them to electronic dockets.  One regulation states: “All information submitted with a notice, including any health and safety study and other supporting documentation, will become part of the public file for that notice, unless such materials are claimed confidential.”  The other regulation states that public files are to be made available in the electronic docket posted at http://www.regulations.gov.

We have blogged extensively about how, even once we receive the public files, they are rife with wholesale omissions, illegal redactions and myriad other problems.

After two years of our repeated requests to EPA to comply with its own regulations, it appears EPA may be taking a first step to try do so:  EPA recently announced (via email, but not anywhere on its website that we can find) that it will start posting PMNs and associated documents it receives in the future to its ChemView database, within 45 days of their receipt.  While this could be a welcome development, it does nothing to remedy EPA’s failure to provide access to the thousands of PMNs it has received in the past.  And it remains to be seen what EPA actually will and won’t be posting.

We’ll be watching closely to see when and what EPA actually makes available.  Part of the need for vigilance comes from a disturbing response we’ve been receiving from EPA’s Docket Center to some recent requests for new chemical public files:   Read More »

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Company safety data sheets on new chemicals frequently lack the worker protections EPA claims they include

By / Published: May 22, 2019

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

Readers of this blog know how concerned EDF is over the Trump EPA’s approval of many dozens of new chemicals based on its mere “expectation” that workers across supply chains will always employ personal protective equipment (PPE) just because it is recommended in the manufacturer’s non-binding safety data sheet (SDS).[pullquote]How much farther under the bus will the Trump EPA throw American workers?[/pullquote]

The typical course has been for EPA to identify risks to workers from a new chemical it is reviewing under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), but then – instead of issuing an order imposing binding conditions on the chemical’s entry onto the market, as TSCA requires – to find that the chemical is “not likely to present an unreasonable risk” and impose no conditions whatsoever on its manufacturer.  This sleight of hand is pulled off by EPA stating that it:

expects employers will require and workers will use appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) … consistent with the Safety Data Sheet prepared by the new chemical submitter, in a manner adequate to protect them.

We have detailed earlier the myriad ways in which this approach strays from the law, is bad policy and won’t protect workers.  But here’s yet another gaping problem:  When we are able to look at the actual SDSs – that is, when EPA has made them available and when they are not totally redacted – we are frequently finding that the specific PPE that EPA claims to be specified in the SDSs – and that EPA asserts is sufficient to protect all workers handling the chemical – is not in the SDSs.   Read More »

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