Stephanie Schwarz, J.D., is a Legal Fellow. Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
At last month’s public meeting held by EPA to discuss changes it is making to its new chemical review program, the issue of public access to information about those chemicals and EPA’s review of them featured prominently. This post describes EDF’s recent exasperating attempt to gain access to information that the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and EPA’s own regulations require be made public.[pullquote]We blogged recently about how EPA is now hiding its tracks when it comes to the outcomes of its initial reviews of new chemicals. This post details another way in which EPA is cutting the public out of the new chemicals review process.[/pullquote]
EDF has repeatedly informed EPA that the agency’s regulations (see here and here) require EPA to promptly make 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.
Despite the clear requirements for electronic access, EPA acknowledged at its December 6 meeting that it has not provided such access. It then stated that “[s]anitized PMNs and their attachments can be requested directly from the EPA Docket Center.” So we decided to try getting these materials by that route.
On December 13, 2017, EDF sent a letter to the EPA Docket Center requesting electronic versions of the sanitized Pre-Manufacturing Notices (PMNs), any health and safety studies, and any other supporting documentation associated with each chemical substance for which, between the law’s passage on June 22, 2016, and the date of our request, EPA had made a finding:
- under § 5(g), in accordance with § 5(a)(3)(C), that the new chemical substance is “not likely to present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment;” or
- in accordance with §§ 5(a)(3)(A) and 5(f), that the new chemical substance “presents an unreasonable risk of injury to health or environment.”
We received a CD from the docket center two weeks later, on December 26, 2017. The CD contained file folders for 67 PMNs; a week later we requested additional file folders for two PMNs that received “not likely” findings around the time of our first request, and subsequently received a second CD.
We have been reviewing these materials. This post is the first in a series that will describe what we got – and didn’t get. Read More »
