EDF Health

Selected tag(s): Lautenberg Act

Now’s the Time—How EPA Can Use TSCA to Turn Off the PFAS Tap

By Maria Doa, PhD, Senior Director, Chemicals Policy / Published: September 18, 2023

The words P F A S are coming out of a golden faucet. The letters look like clouds or steam.

In the face of mounting evidence about the dangers posed by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), one thing is clear: EPA needs to take urgent action to turn off the tap of these “forever chemicals” that have long-term consequences for our health and the environment.

As we discussed in a previous blog, it is imperative that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) use the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to regulate PFAS chemicals comprehensively—both those newly entering the market and those that have been in circulation for decades.

EPA Should Re-evaluate Its Past Approvals of PFAS

A cornerstone of effective regulation is the re-evaluation of earlier decisions in light of new data. EPA approved many PFAS chemicals 10–20 years ago, before there was a full picture of the pervasiveness and degree of PFAS contamination and its long-term impact. These previously approved PFAS continue to be produced and used—adding to the already substantial PFAS contamination of our environment.

In addition, the 2016 amendments to TSCA, known as the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, significantly expanded both EPA’s authority and its obligation to regulate harmful chemicals, emphasizing potential risks to highly exposed and other vulnerable populations. Using today’s science, EPA should use its authority to re-evaluate the hundreds of previously approved PFAS, including those the agency exempted from full TSCA review.

For both past approvals and for new PFAS entering the market, EPA should take the following steps to up its game:

Use the Best Available Science
The foundation for any regulatory action must be solid science. EPA’s TSCA program should rely on the scientific expertise on PFAS across the agency. EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) has been evaluating PFAS, and the agency has proposed drinking water standards based on robust scientific findings. It is vital that EPA use this best available science when applying TSCA regulations to PFAS. Anything less could undermine the effectiveness of regulatory action, and the protection of human health and the environment.

Assess Cumulative Risks
TSCA provides the framework for a more inclusive understanding of chemical risks, yet EPA’s TSCA program considers PFAS chemicals in isolation. This is an outmoded strategy for protecting human health and the environment. EPA must move toward a cumulative risk assessment model, accounting for the effects of exposure to multiple PFAS chemicals, especially to vulnerable populations. Under the 2016 amendments to TSCA, the EPA has the mandate and authority to do so.

No Release is Negligible
EPA has argued that some PFAS should be of little concern if they have “negligible” releases. The argument that small releases of PFAS are inconsequential falls apart when you consider that they are environmentally mobile, highly persistent and bioaccumulative. Every release contributes to long-term, cumulative exposure. EPA should not discount the impacts of these PFAS by characterizing them as negligible. EPA should exercise its TSCA authority to ensure that all PFAS releases are treated as significant and subject to protective regulatory oversight.

Facilitate Safer Alternatives
The continued presence of harmful PFAS chemicals on the market not only risks public health but also stifles innovation. By using TSCA to restrict or ban these substances, EPA would incentivize the rapid development and adoption of safer alternatives—a step that is long overdue.

In sum, EPA has the regulatory tools it needs to turn off the PFAS tap and protect human health and the environment. By using its full authority under TSCA, EPA can ensure a future where chemicals do not compromise our health and safety. The time for decisive action is now.

Posted in Chemical exposure, Chemical regulation, Cumulative impact, Cumulative risk assessment, Drinking water, Emerging science, Health policy, PFAS, Public health, Regulation, Risk assessment, Risk evaluation, TSCA, TSCA reform, Vulnerable populations, Worker safety / Also tagged , | Authors: / 2 Responses

Fatally Flawed: EDF & partners call on EPA to revoke approval for new chemicals with shocking health risks

By Maria Doa, PhD, Senior Director, Chemicals Policy / Published: August 10, 2023

 

 

Black & white photo of a refinery, billowing smoke.

What Happened?

EDF and other environmental groups recently asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to withdraw the approval it issued for a group of new chemicals. This approval, also known as a consent order, allows Chevron to create fuels at its refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi, by using oils produced through a process of superheating plastic waste to break it down (a process known as pyrolysis). The consent order also allows for the use of these fuels derived from waste plastic at more than 100 locations. ProPublica published an article on the issue on August 4, 2023.

Why It Matters

EPA is required by law to provide protections against unreasonable risks posed by new chemicals. But in the consent order EPA approved the production and use of these new chemicals despite significant health risks. One of the chemicals posed a 1 in 4 risk of developing cancer for people exposed to it. Another chemical carried risks of a 7 in 100 cancer risk from eating fish contaminated by it and a greater than 1.3 in 1 cancer risk from inhaling it.

When asked about the shockingly high cancer risks it estimated, EPA claimed its cancer risk assumptions were overly conservative but failed to provide any information about what it believes are the actual risks and pointed to undefined controls under other laws as controlling the risks.

Until now, the acceptable risk standard for cancer in the general population has been 1 in 1,000,000. The risk levels EPA identified are up to 1,000,000 times greater than that. Read More »

Posted in Adverse health effects, Chemical exposure, Chemical regulation, Frontline communities, Health hazards, Health policy, Industry influence, Risk assessment, Risk evaluation, TSCA, Vulnerable populations / Also tagged , , , | Authors: / Comments are closed

EPA Should Use U.S. Chemical Safety Law to Turn Off PFAS Tap

By Maria Doa, PhD, Senior Director, Chemicals Policy / Published: June 30, 2023

Faucet with liquid pouring out next to the word PFAS under a magnifying glass

PFAS is a group of synthetic chemicals used in industrial processes and consumer products, including water-repellent clothing, such as outdoor wear, and food packaging. Once these “forever chemicals” are produced and used, they often make their way into the environment and our bodies. Many pose serious threats due to their toxic effects (often at trace levels) and their ability to build up in people, animals and the environment. Studies show that they are in almost all of us.

To make matters worse, people are exposed to multiple PFAS, not individual PFAS in isolation. Yet under the nation’s primary chemical safety law, EPA evaluates the safety of PFAS chemicals one at a time and does not consider the combined risks from exposures to multiple PFAS. Combined exposures increase the risk of harmful effects, thus magnifying the risks and the need for action.

Current Situation: All Costs, No Benefits

PFAS move easily throughout the environment and are difficult to destroy. They have contaminated drinking water, food, farms, wildlife, and the environment more broadly. At the local, state and federal levels, the U.S. is spending millions of dollars to clean up PFAS contamination. Some states, such as Michigan and Maine, are trying to recoup the costs their residents have had to bear to clean-up PFAS contamination of their water and land. The federal government is also taking action to address the widespread PFAS contamination. The costs for cleaning up PFAS contamination are imposed on society by the domestic producers, importers and users of PFAS who profit from their production and use.

Yet, despite the well-documented risks and costs to society of these chemicals, companies still continue to produce, import, and use PFAS. It is time to ban all PFAS or—if there are truly essential uses for these chemicals—limit how they are produced, imported and used so that their impact on us and the environment is minimal.

Urgent Need: Revisit, Reassess, and Regulate All PFAS

While EPA has recently tightened up approvals for new PFAS entering the market, it has yet to take significant action on those that are already on the market, which includes the hundreds of PFAS the agency approved over the past few decades. It is clear these PFAS have not been produced responsibly as demonstrated by the environmental contamination associated with many of the PFAS manufacturing facilities. And yet, many of these PFAS are still on the market. They are being produced and released into the environment, are in products we use every day, and continue to contaminate us and our environment.

Many of EPA’s approvals were made 10 to 20 years ago, before we had a full picture of the pervasiveness and degree of PFAS contamination. The data on the extent of the environmental contamination of these persistent PFAS, their ability to move through the environment, and the significant difficulty in destroying them was not as robust as it is today. Furthermore, mounting evidence shows that even trace levels of PFAS can cause developmental issues in children, reduced fertility, hormonal disruptions, and certain types of cancer.

In addition, these approvals did not consider risks to vulnerable groups, such as pregnant women and children as currently required by the law. Many communities are exposed to multiple PFAS, particularly those who live, work and play near where PFAS are made and used.

Addressing the production, import and use of PFAS would limit further pollution of our water supplies, safeguard the health of our communities, and be consistent with other strong EPA actions to address PFAS, including its recent robust proposed drinking water standards.

Effective regulation of these harmful chemicals at their source would also accelerate efforts to seek out and adopt safer alternatives. Leaving chemicals with such well-documented harms on the market makes it more difficult for innovative, safer substitutes to enter it. Failing to address these risks in effect puts a thumb on the scale in support of older harmful technologies.

Our Take

EPA should re-evaluate each of the PFAS it has approved. During that re-evaluation, EPA should use the best available science and consider the full picture of PFAS exposure. Considering each PFAS in isolation rather than the multiple PFAS people, particularly those in vulnerable groups, are exposed to will underestimate their risk.

EPA should use the Toxic Substances Control Act to take action to ban these legacy PFAS, or restrict them if the uses are truly essential, rather than continuing to allow the production, import and use of these demonstrably harmful “forever chemicals.”

Go Deeper

Learn more about EDF’s concerns about PFAS

EPA’s information on PFAS

Posted in Chemical exposure, Chemical regulation, Contamination, Cumulative impact, Cumulative risk assessment, Emerging testing methods, Food, Food packaging, Health hazards, Health science, PFAS, Public health, Risk assessment, Risk evaluation, TSCA, Vulnerable populations / Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Authors: / Comments are closed

Public deserves strong safety reviews for chemicals

By Maria Doa, PhD, Senior Director, Chemicals Policy / Published: August 25, 2022

Maria Doa, PhD, Senior Director, Chemicals Policy

Innovation may involve bringing a new chemical to market, but before the new chemical can be used or sold, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the nation’s primary chemical safety law, directs EPA to conduct a safety assessment. Specifically, EPA must affirmatively determine whether a new chemical may present—or is not likely to present—an “unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment”.

Unfortunately, the chemical industry often provides EPA with very little toxicity data for its chemicals. At the same time, it pressures the agency to conduct assessments quickly, claiming that the chemicals under review support innovation and should therefore be approved quickly.

EPA should never be pressured to rubber stamp a safety assessment, no matter how innovative a company claims its new chemical to be. The potential consequences of this pressure for us could include being exposed to chemicals in unanticipated ways and having to spend enormous sums to clean up our air, water, and land. Instead, EPA must be allowed to use the best available information and conduct robust TSCA reviews. Read More »

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Upcoming EDF Webinar: Register Now!

By EDF Blogs / Published: August 11, 2022

Cumulative Risk Assessment Framework: A Tool to Spur Improved TSCA Risk Evaluations

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

1:00–2:00 p.m. (ET)

Join the EDF Safer Chemicals team and our academic partners from the University of Maryland and the University of Rochester as we debut a new tool, the Cumulative Risk Assessment Framework, to support implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act. The tool will encourage more robust evaluations of health risks from chemicals and other stressors—improving public health and increasing environmental safety.

This webinar will be of interest to those who conduct or study chemical risk evaluations/assessments, including scientists/researchers, policy makers, and policy implementers.

Registration is required.

 

Posted in Uncategorized / Tagged | Comments are closed

EPA Takes Important Step to Ban Chrysotile Asbestos

By Maria Doa, PhD, Senior Director, Chemicals Policy / Published: July 20, 2022

Maria Doa, Ph.D., Senior Director, Chemicals Policy

EPA has made the important and long-awaited decision to propose banning nearly all remaining uses of chrysotile asbestos in the United States. EDF submitted comments supporting this proposed ban (with some caveats) because of the high risk of cancer and fatal respiratory diseases for individuals who import, process, distribute, and use chrysotile asbestos. The rule could be significantly improved by requiring a more immediate ban. If EPA chooses a more extended phase-in of the ban, we recommend that the Agency require companies to reduce workplace exposures in the interim to better protect workers.

Summary of Key EDF Concerns and Comments

Although asbestos is a known carcinogen, it is still used in automobile brake linings, gaskets, and brake blocks, as well as in permeable separators (diaphragms) at chlor-alkali facilities to produce chlorine and caustic soda. Currently, nearly 40,000 Americans die each year from asbestos-related illnesses. These deaths are preventable and must be stopped, and we applaud EPA for taking this step toward doing so.

  • EDF supports rapid implementation of EPA’s proposed chrysotile asbestos ban. Given the unreasonable risk posed by asbestos, we call on EPA to start the ban for all uses within 6 months after publishing the finalized rule.
  • In the event EPA chooses an extended phase-in (>6 months) of the ban on using chrysotile asbestos in chlor-alkali diaphragms and sheet gaskets, it should require companies to reduce workplace exposures during the interim in a way that poses the least risk to potentially exposed populations—particularly workers. In this case, we call on EPA to require hazard communication and the hierarchy of controls—first by reducing exposure through process, engineering, or administrative changes. Personal protective equipment (PPE) as a risk-reduction measure should be used only after applying these other controls to reduce chemical exposures. However, this approach would be less effective and more burdensome on workers than eliminating exposure completely and should be used only as a short-term, interim measure until the ban goes into effect.
  • EPA should explain how its proposed disposal requirements address the unreasonable risk presented by chrysotile asbestos. EDF is concerned that EPA has not demonstrated how compliance with OSHA’s Asbestos General Industry Standard and EPA’s National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants would eliminate unreasonable risk, as TSCA requires.
  • EPA underestimates the benefits of preventing health impacts by banning chrysotile asbestos. In baseline exposure calculations, the Agency inappropriately assumes that workers will consistently and correctly use PPE while handling chrysotile asbestos and dramatically underestimates how many individuals will benefit from the rule. EPA should bolster its Economic Analysis in the final rule to more accurately reflect the benefits of the ban.

In addition, the proposed rule indicates EPA is continuing to include troubling policy decisions in its risk evaluations. Moving forward:

  • EPA should not consider costs or other non-risk factors in risk evaluations. EPA states it will consider use of PPE and other risk-management activities in its risk evaluations to help in making risk-management decisions—an approach that is not scientifically supportable and inappropriately conflates risk assessment with risk management.
  • EPA should not inappropriately treat workers differently from the general population by applying a less-protective cancer benchmark for workers. TSCA does not support this approach. Given that workers are particularly identified in TSCA for consideration and often face higher risks than the general population, making a less-protective standard is especially unjustified. (See our June 21, 2022 blog post on this issue.)

EDF also found many areas of agreement with EPA in the proposed risk-management rule. You can read the full set of comments here.

 

 

Posted in Regulation / Also tagged , | Comments are closed