{"id":7147,"date":"2017-11-21T09:49:05","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T14:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/?p=7147"},"modified":"2024-02-12T11:02:02","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T16:02:02","slug":"more-questions-than-answers-edf-submits-extensive-questions-to-epa-in-advance-of-public-meeting-on-new-chemical-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2017\/11\/21\/more-questions-than-answers-edf-submits-extensive-questions-to-epa-in-advance-of-public-meeting-on-new-chemical-reviews\/","title":{"rendered":"More questions than answers: EDF submits extensive questions to EPA in advance of public meeting on new chemical reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Richard Denison, Ph.D.,\u00a0<\/em>is a Lead Senior Scientist.<\/p>\n<p>Environmental Defense Fund yesterday <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/11\/files\/2017\/11\/EDFs-Questions-for-New-Chemicals-Meeting-FINAL.pdf\">submitted questions to EPA<\/a> that we hope are answered by the agency at the public meeting it is convening on December 6<sup>th<\/sup> on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca\/meetings-and-webinars-amended-toxic-substances-control\">changes to its new chemicals reviews<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Despite providing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca\/public-meeting-progress-implementing-changes-new\">some new documents <\/a>in advance of the public meeting, details about EPA\u2019s new policies and practices for reviewing new chemicals under the reforms made to TSCA by the Lautenberg Act remain scant.\u00a0 We <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2017\/08\/07\/epas-announced-changes-to-new-chemicals-review-process-put-industry-demands-for-ready-market-access-above-public-health-protection\/\">identified a number of serious concerns <\/a>when these changes were first announced by Administrator Pruitt in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/newsreleases\/epa-eliminates-new-chemical-backlog-announces-improvements-new-chemical-safety-reviews\">news release issued on August 7<\/a> \u2013 concerns that the meeting background materials EPA has provided only serve to heighten.<\/p>\n<p>The questions we submitted today relate to our concerns in the following topics:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The statutory and scientific basis for EPA\u2019s new policies, the timing of their application, and omissions from the new framework<\/li>\n<li>EPA\u2019s plan to use so-called \u201cnon-5(e) SNURs\u201d in lieu of consent orders<\/li>\n<li>Recent policy changes not included in EPA\u2019s agenda for the public meeting<\/li>\n<li>Public access to information<\/li>\n<li>Confidential business information claims<\/li>\n<li>Use of section 5(e) SNURs<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>EDF has been raising concerns for some time now over the recent redirection of the new chemicals program starkly away from the approach taken following last year\u2019s enactment of the Lautenberg Act.<\/p>\n<p>Many of the questions we\u2019ve just submitted were <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/11\/files\/2017\/11\/EDF-LetterQs-for-EPA-on-new-chemicals-8-16-17.pdf\">formally submitted by letter <\/a>to EPA\u2019s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) more than 3 months ago, on August 16, 2017.\u00a0 Unfortunately, we have yet to receive responses to them.\u00a0 We hope they will be addressed at the December 6<sup>th<\/sup> meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Denison, Ph.D.,\u00a0is a Lead Senior Scientist. Environmental Defense Fund yesterday submitted questions to EPA that we hope are answered by the agency at the public meeting it is convening on December 6th on changes to its new chemicals reviews. Despite providing some new documents in advance of the public meeting, details about EPA\u2019s new &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,56096,114108],"tags":[68,56107,56108],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-7147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-policy","category-omboira","category-tsca","tag-epa","tag-lautenberg-act","tag-new-chemicals"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7147"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12815,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7147\/revisions\/12815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7147"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}