{"id":8920,"date":"2019-07-02T13:07:29","date_gmt":"2019-07-02T18:07:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/?p=8920"},"modified":"2024-02-12T11:02:19","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T16:02:19","slug":"hey-trump-epa-your-extreme-bias-in-favor-of-the-chemical-industry-is-showing-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2019\/07\/02\/hey-trump-epa-your-extreme-bias-in-favor-of-the-chemical-industry-is-showing-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Hey Trump EPA, your extreme bias in favor of the chemical industry is showing again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Richard Denison, Ph.D.,\u00a0<\/em>is a Lead Senior Scientist.<\/p>\n<p><em>[See UPDATE in brackets below.]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Trump Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.regulations.gov\/document?D=EPA-HQ-OPPT-2019-0237-0001\">has just released drafts of two more chemical risk evaluations<\/a> it has conducted under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).\u00a0 One is for the likely human carcinogen and neurotoxicant <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edf.org\/health\/14-dioxane\">1,4-dioxane<\/a>, which contaminates <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ewg.org\/cancer\/2017\/09\/cancer-causing-chemical-14-dioxane-contaminates-americans-drinking-water\">public water systems serving more than 7 million Americans in 27 states<\/a> at levels exceeding the level EPA has traditionally (until now) aimed to meet for general population exposures. \u00a0The other is for the flame retardant <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edf.org\/health\/cyclic-aliphatic-bromides-cluster-hbcd\">hexabromocyclododecane, or HBCD<\/a>, a persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemical \u2013 toxic to human development and highly acutely and chronically toxic to aquatic organisms \u2013 that has been banned or heavily restricted in most of the rest of the developed world.<\/p>\n<p>As might have been expected of the Trump EPA, the draft risk evaluations wholly exonerate HBCD and largely do so for 1,4-dioxane.\u00a0 Especially in the latter case, EPA achieves its improbable finding through quite a <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2018\/07\/05\/how-pruitts-epa-finds-a-dangerous-chemical-is-safe-ignore-most-exposures-to-it\/\">sleight of hand<\/a>: \u00a0EPA simply excludes most exposures to the chemical from the scope of its risk evaluation.[pullquote]<em><strong>Trump EPA political appointees have repeatedly argued that the agency needs to be doing a better job at \u201crisk communication.\u201d\u00a0 I guess we now know what that means.<\/strong><\/em>[\/pullquote]<\/p>\n<p>Once finalized, EPA\u2019s determinations that these chemicals \u201cdo not present an unreasonable risk\u201d will mean it has no obligation or authority to impose any restrictions on their manufacture, processing, distribution, use, recycling or disposal.<\/p>\n<p>We will be looking at these documents more closely in the very limited time EPA has provided for the public to review and comment on them.\u00a0 But I want to draw attention right off the bat to a telling aspect of how the Trump EPA has presented its risk determination for 1,4-dioxane.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>EPA\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca\/draft-risk-evaluation-14-dioxane\">webpage<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/sites\/production\/files\/2019-06\/documents\/14d_draf_re_factsheet_final.pdf\">factsheet<\/a> for its 1,4-dioxane risk evaluation both summarize the conclusions using the following text:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>No unreasonable risks to occupational non-users<\/strong>. EPA found no unreasonable risks to workers in the general area of 1,4-dioxane use but not directly in contact with the chemical.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Unreasonable risks to workers in certain circumstances<\/strong>. These initial determinations are based on a draft assessment of the reasonably available information and are not EPA\u2019s final determinations on whether this chemical presents unreasonable risks under the conditions of use. The Agency will use feedback received from the public and peer review processes to inform the final risk evaluations.<\/li>\n<li><strong>No unreasonable risk to the environment<\/strong>. For all the conditions of use included in the draft risk evaluation, EPA found no unreasonable risks to the environment from 1,4-dioxane.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Note the dramatic contrast between the wording of the conclusions where EPA says it did not find any risks (the first and third bullets) versus those where it says it did (the second bullet).\u00a0 In the former case, EPA pulls no punches, stating unequivocally that \u201cEPA found no unreasonable risks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now look again at the text in the second bullet:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">These <em>initial<\/em> determinations are based on a <em>draft<\/em> assessment of the reasonably available information and <em>are not EPA\u2019s final determinations<\/em> on whether this chemical presents unreasonable risks under the conditions of use. \u00a0<em>The Agency will use feedback received from the public and peer review processes to inform the final risk evaluations<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>While elsewhere EPA more generally indicates it may refine its draft conclusions based on feedback, all of the text in that second bullet that I\u2019ve italicized applies equally to the conclusions in the first and third bullets.\u00a0 So why does EPA use it to caveat only the one \u201cpositive\u201d risk finding?<\/p>\n<p><em>[UPDATE:\u00a0 The press release EPA issued on June 28 to announce the release of the drafts (not available online) also used equivocal language (emphasis added):\u00a0 &#8220;The data in the draft risk evaluation for 1,4-dioxane does show there <\/em><strong>could<\/strong> <em>be unreasonable risks to workers in certain circumstances.]\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This same stark contrast can be seen in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/sites\/production\/files\/2019-06\/documents\/1_14-dioxane_draft_risk_evaluation_06-27-2019.pdf\">draft risk evaluation itself<\/a>.\u00a0 In the risk determination section of the introduction (pp. 21-22), EPA states pithily and unequivocally that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cthere are no risks of 1,4-dioxane to the aquatic pathways\u201d (p. 21);<\/li>\n<li>\u201cEPA does not find unreasonable risks to the health of occupational non-users\u201d (p. 21); and<\/li>\n<li>for one major subset of conditions of use, \u201cEPA finds that the aforementioned conditions of use do not present an unreasonable risk of injury to health\u201d (p. 22).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>However, for the other subset of conditions of use where EPA does indicate worker risks, here is the heavily caveated and tentative language EPA uses to state that finding (p. 22):<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">EPA assessed inhalation and\/or dermal exposure scenarios that resulted in MOEs [margins of exposure] and\/or cancer risk estimates that indicate risks relevant to the respective benchmarks. \u00a0EPA considered those risk estimates; confidence in the data used in the risk estimates and uncertainties associated with the risk estimates; and relevant risk-related factors described above and has preliminarily concluded that the aforementioned conditions of use present an unreasonable risk of injury to health, as set forth in the risk determination section of this draft risk evaluation. \u00a0<em>This draft document\u2019s preliminarily [<\/em>sic<em>] determination of unreasonable risk does not mean that this is EPA\u2019s final conclusion. \u00a0EPA will consider further input through scientific and public review.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What kinds of signals does this contrasting language send to stakeholders?\u00a0 For industry stakeholders, it plays up EPA\u2019s tentativeness over any findings of risk and invites them to engage in the public comment process because doing so could well lead EPA to change its mind.<\/p>\n<p>For other stakeholders, such as those in the labor, health and environmental communities, who believe this chemical likely does present significant risks for the general population, consumers and the environment as well as workers, EPA\u2019s language signals, in short:\u00a0 \u201cComment if you want, but we have already made up our minds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trump EPA political appointees have repeatedly argued that the agency needs to be doing a better job at \u201crisk communication.\u201d\u00a0 I guess we now know what that means.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Denison, Ph.D.,\u00a0is a Lead Senior Scientist. [See UPDATE in brackets below.] The Trump Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has just released drafts of two more chemical risk evaluations it has conducted under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).\u00a0 One is for the likely human carcinogen and neurotoxicant 1,4-dioxane, which contaminates public water systems serving more &#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":[44,56093,56096,114108],"tags":[107195,68,113928,91722],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-8920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-policy","category-industry-influence","category-omboira","category-tsca","tag-dioxane","tag-epa","tag-hbcd","tag-risk-evaluation"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8920","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=8920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12879,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8920\/revisions\/12879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8920"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}