{"id":8855,"date":"2019-06-03T14:52:37","date_gmt":"2019-06-03T19:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/?p=8855"},"modified":"2025-12-03T15:17:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T20:17:26","slug":"the-trump-epa-is-illegally-denying-requests-for-public-files-on-new-chemicals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2019\/06\/03\/the-trump-epa-is-illegally-denying-requests-for-public-files-on-new-chemicals\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trump EPA is illegally denying requests for public files on new chemicals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Denison, Ph.D.,\u00a0<\/em>is a Lead Senior Scientist.<\/p>\n

For some time now, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has been requesting \u201cpublic files\u201d of new chemical notices the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) receives under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).\u00a0 The process is kludge<\/a>-y to say the least.\u00a0 We have to email our request to EPA\u2019s Docket Center, and, typically, several weeks later the staff there copy the files that staff in the TSCA office have given them in response to our request onto a CD-ROM and snail-mail it to us.<\/p>\n

This, despite the fact that EPA\u2019s own regulations (see\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0here<\/a>) state unequivocally that EPA is to promptly make new chemicals\u2019 premanufacture notifications (PMNs) and associated documents broadly available to the general public by posting them to electronic dockets<\/em>. \u00a0One\u00a0regulation<\/a>\u00a0states: \u201cAll 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.\u201d\u00a0 The\u00a0other regulation\u00a0<\/a>states that public files are to be made available in the electronic docket posted at\u00a0http:\/\/www.regulations.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We have blogged extensively<\/a> about how, even once we receive the public files, they are rife with wholesale omissions, illegal redactions and myriad other problems.<\/p>\n

After two years of our repeated requests to EPA to comply with its own regulations, it appears EPA may be taking a first step to try do so:\u00a0 EPA recently announced (via email, but not anywhere on its website that we can find) that it will start posting PMNs and associated documents it receives in the future to its ChemView<\/a> database, within 45 days of their receipt.\u00a0 While this could be a welcome development, it does nothing to remedy EPA\u2019s failure to provide access to the thousands of PMNs it has received in the past.\u00a0 And it remains to be seen what EPA actually will and won\u2019t be posting.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll be watching closely to see when and what EPA actually makes available.\u00a0 Part of the need for vigilance comes from a disturbing response we\u2019ve been receiving from EPA\u2019s Docket Center to some recent requests for new chemical public files:\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Our requests for some of the files have been denied on the basis that the companies\u2019 submissions contain confidential business information (CBI), or that EPA still needs to review the documents to \u201csanitize\u201d them to remove CBI.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the problem with that:\u00a0 EPA\u2019s own regulations (40 C.F.R. section 720.40(d)(2)<\/a>) require that companies provide \u2013 as part of their submissions \u2013 \u201csanitized cop[ies]\u201d of any documents containing information they claim CBI.\u00a0 And those sanitized copies are to be placed in the public files (see 720.80(b)(2)<\/a>).\u00a0 So EPA\u2019s withholding from the public of those files points to illegal actions on EPA\u2019s part:\u00a0 Its acceptance of incomplete PMNs that include CBI claims but fail to provide the mandated sanitized copies (see 720.65(c)(1)(vii)<\/a>); and its apparent failure to review at least 25% of those claims within 90 days of their receipt, as required under TSCA section 14(g)(1).<\/p>\n

Below we list the public files we have been denied timely access to; note that, in each case, EPA\u2019s responses to our requests were sent well after the 90-day timeline for reviews of the CBI claims.\u00a0 In the table, we also indicate the reason EPA stated in its response to us as to why it was withholding the public file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
PMN<\/strong><\/td>\nDate of PMN receipt by EPA<\/strong><\/td>\nDate response from Docket Center was received by EDF<\/strong><\/td>\nLag (days)<\/strong><\/td>\nReason given by EPA for not providing public file<\/strong><\/td>\nStatus<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
P-17-0387<\/td>\n8\/30\/2017<\/td>\n4\/15\/2019<\/td>\n593<\/td>\n“still waiting to be sanitized and reviewed”<\/td>\nstill not received<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
P-17-0388<\/td>\n8\/30\/2017<\/td>\n4\/15\/2019<\/td>\n593<\/td>\n“still waiting to be sanitized and reviewed”<\/td>\nstill not received<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
P-19-0021<\/td>\n11\/12\/2018<\/td>\n4\/15\/2019<\/td>\n154<\/td>\n“still waiting to be sanitized and reviewed”<\/td>\nreceived later<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
P-19-0022<\/td>\n11\/12\/2018<\/td>\n4\/15\/2019<\/td>\n154<\/td>\n“still waiting to be sanitized and reviewed”<\/td>\nreceived later<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
P-19-0009<\/td>\n10\/23\/2018<\/td>\n4\/18\/2019<\/td>\n177<\/td>\n“CBI was found in the sanitized submission”<\/td>\nstill not received<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
P-17-0191<\/td>\n12\/30\/2016<\/td>\n5\/20\/2019<\/td>\n871<\/td>\n“will not be included, due to it containing Cbi”<\/td>\nstill not received<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
P-18-0222<\/td>\n6\/22\/2018<\/td>\n5\/21\/2019<\/td>\n333<\/td>\n“was not sent due to CBO [sic<\/em>] issues”<\/td>\nstill not received<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
P-19-0037<\/td>\n12\/11\/2018<\/td>\n5\/22\/2019<\/td>\n162<\/td>\n“was excluded from the submissions sent to you because CBI was found in the sanitized submission.\u00a0 So, this PMN was not given to the docket center staff.”<\/td>\nstill not received<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

We can hope that EPA\u2019s recent announcement suggests there may be some improvement in the future.\u00a0 But EPA also needs to remedy its systematic, longstanding failures to:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • comply with its own regulations that require public access to the thousands of PMNs it has reviewed;<\/li>\n
  • enforce its own requirements that companies include sanitized copies of any documents they submit that contain information they claim is CBI, and reject as incomplete submissions that do not; and<\/li>\n
  • conduct timely reviews of CBI claims in the PMN submissions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Richard Denison, Ph.D.,\u00a0is a Lead Senior Scientist. For some time now, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has been requesting \u201cpublic files\u201d of new chemical notices the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) receives under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).\u00a0 The process is kludge-y to say the least.\u00a0 We have to email our request to EPA\u2019s Docket Center, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":8858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,114108],"tags":[39155,68,56108],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-8855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-policy","category-tsca","tag-cbi","tag-epa","tag-new-chemicals"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8855","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=8855"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13402,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8855\/revisions\/13402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8855"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}