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

This is the third in a series of blog posts based on our frustrating, and frustrated, efforts to get information on premanufacture notifications (PMNs) for new chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  The saga began when we requested from the EPA Docket Center the public files on 69 new chemicals, most of which EPA had determined were “not likely to present an unreasonable risk” under the TSCA, as amended in 2016 by the Lautenberg Act.  This series of posts analyzes and describes what we did, and did not, get from the Docket Center, to which EPA staff pointed us when we raised the fact that such files are not available on EPA’s website or at www.regulations.gov, despite EPA regulations requiring they be.

TSCA and EPA’s regulations contain a number of provisions that, if reliably implemented, would give the public better access to, or at least a better understanding of, the information EPA receives on new chemicals.  This includes mandates that EPA:

• publish in the Federal Register EPA’s receipt of new chemical PMNs (TSCA § 5(d)(2));
• make all PMNs and Significant New Use Notices (SNUNs) publicly available (TSCA § 5(d)(1));
• make all information submitted with the notices available to the public (TSCA § 5(b)(3) and 40 C.F.R. § 720.95); and
• make the public files electronically available (40 C.F.R. §§ 700.17(b)(1), 720.95).

EPA has repeatedly committed to increasing the transparency of its new chemicals program.  Unfortunately, our review of the PMN files we received has revealed massive gaps and inconsistencies in the information EPA does provide to the public, and all too often we are finding that EPA has entirely failed to comply with the law and its own regulations.  These failings are on top of efforts by the agency to actively hide information on new chemicals that it had made public for decades.

This post will focus on failings of EPA’s new chemicals program when it comes to transparency and compliance with TSCA and its own regulations with respect to the PMNs EPA receives for new chemicals.  These failings make it virtually impossible for the public to gain any understanding of, or play any meaningful role in, EPA’s review of new chemicals under TSCA.   Read More »

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

We recently started a series of blog posts describing what we did, and did not, get from the EPA Docket Center when we requested the public files on about 70 new chemicals, most of which EPA had determined were “not likely to present an unreasonable risk” under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), as amended in 2016 by the Lautenberg Act.  To continue our series, we address in this post EPA’s pervasive failure to require companies to adequately substantiate Confidential Business Information (CBI) claims, and its own apparent failure to review such claims, despite clear requirements to do so under § 14 of TSCA. [pullquote]Twenty months after passage of the Lautenberg Act, we simply must ask:  When will EPA start carrying out its new responsibilities on CBI claims – which includes compelling companies to comply with the law?[/pullquote]

First, to provide some context, let us address a question we were asked based on our first post: whether the PMN situation we are describing is any worse now than it was pre-Lautenberg Act.  We suspect it is not necessarily worse.  However, the purpose of the reforms to CBI in the Lautenberg Act was to fix these problems, by requiring substantiation and EPA review of most CBI claims, including those asserted in premanufacture notifications (PMNs) submitted for new chemicals.  By and large it appears this is simply not happening, 20 months after the law passed and those provisions took effect.

Few of the PMN public files we received included any substantiations, despite massive assertions of CBI claims that require substantiation; instead, companies simply redacted the information.  In addition, nearly all of those submissions that do include a substantiation document are wholly inadequate, routinely claiming information as CBI that is not eligible for nondisclosure or failing to provide justification for information that may be eligible.  The violations are so egregious that they indicate EPA is failing to conduct even a cursory review of the claims and redactions.   Read More »