Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.
As I noted in my last post, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) issued its own “prioritization tool” in anticipation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) public meetings to get input on the approach it will use to identify additional chemicals of concern under its Enhanced Chemicals Management Program.
In the context of TSCA reform, various actors in the industry have long called for prioritization, often saying they support EPA’s ability to get off to a quick start on identifying chemicals for further work – only to propose schemes that are more likely to do the opposite.
ACC itself has over time come off as a bit schizophrenic on prioritization, apparently being for it before they were against it. ACC’s release of its tool puts it squarely back in the pro-prioritization camp, but just what is it proposing? My sense is it’s after something quite different from what EPA proposes, and frankly, different from what EPA is currently capable of deploying, given its limited authority and resources under TSCA. In this sense, ACC’s proposal is more relevant in the context of TSCA reform, where we presumably would have an EPA with a mandate to review all chemicals in commerce, the authority to readily get the data it needs, and the resources required to execute the kind of comprehensive prioritization scheme ACC proposes.
But setting that disconnect aside for the moment, let’s delve a bit deeper into the ACC proposal on its own merits. Read More