{"id":9133,"date":"2019-10-02T07:52:02","date_gmt":"2019-10-02T12:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/?p=9133"},"modified":"2024-02-12T11:02:22","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T16:02:22","slug":"an-unwarranted-assumption-run-amok-how-the-trump-epa-grossly-understates-the-risks-of-1-bromopropane-to-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2019\/10\/02\/an-unwarranted-assumption-run-amok-how-the-trump-epa-grossly-understates-the-risks-of-1-bromopropane-to-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"An unwarranted assumption run amok: How the Trump EPA grossly understates the risks of 1-Bromopropane to workers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Richard Denison, Ph.D.,\u00a0<\/em>is a Lead Senior Scientist.<\/p>\n<p>We have <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/category\/worker-safety\/\">blogged repeatedly<\/a> about the ways in which the Trump EPA is compromising workers\u2019 health, either by failing to identify the significant risks they face, or wishing away the risks EPA does identify by erroneously assuming that existing industry practices and OSHA regulations are taking care of any possible problem.[pullquote]<em><strong>If EPA uses PPE assumptions to erase unreasonable risks, then it won\u2019t regulate the chemical and will forgo its only opportunity to ensure that PPE is actually used. \u00a0If EPA does find unreasonable risk even with its PPE assumptions, by understating the magnitude of that risk, any subsequent regulation EPA promulgates will be underprotective<\/strong><\/em>.[\/pullquote]<\/p>\n<p>All of this is contrary to the mandate Congress gave EPA when it reformed the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in 2016.\u00a0 The new TSCA <em>strengthens<\/em> EPA\u2019s authority and mandate to protect workers, explicitly identifying them as a \u201cpotentially exposed or susceptible subpopulation.\u201d\u00a0 But under this administration, EPA has instituted many policies and practices that undercut the protections afforded workers under TSCA.<\/p>\n<p>A key policy driver is EPA\u2019s assertion \u2013 absent any empirical evidence to support it \u2013 that workers throughout chemical supply chains will always wear effective personal protective equipment (PPE).\u00a0 There are many legal, scientific and policy problems with this assumption, and it is <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/category\/worker-safety\/\">only one of many questionable aspects<\/a> of the Trump EPA\u2019s handling of risks to workers.<\/p>\n<p>But just how big a difference does this assumption make?\u00a0 Let\u2019s look at the agency\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca\/draft-risk-evaluation-1-bromopropane\">draft risk evaluation for the carcinogenic solvent 1-Bromopropane (1-BP)<\/a>, which is currently undergoing <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2019\/09\/13\/edf-comments-flag-serious-flaws-in-epas-draft-risk-evaluation-for-1-bromopropane\/\">public comment<\/a> and peer review.\u00a0 <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>For some conditions of use and associated exposure scenarios, EPA did find unreasonable risk, while for others it did not.<\/p>\n<p>EPA\u2019s presentation of its risk findings in Table 5-1 (starting on p. 260) doesn\u2019t make it easy to ferret out just how much the agency relies on its PPE assumption to erase or reduce any unreasonable risks it finds.\u00a0 But by poring through the dozens of detailed tables in the bowels of its draft risk evaluation, one can discern the levels of risk EPA found for various \u201cconditions of use\u201d of 1-BP.\u00a0 The tables show those risk levels <em>before<\/em> EPA applied its assumptions regarding PPE use, then whether an assumption of PPE use could make that risk go away, and if so, what degree of efficiency of respirators or gloves EPA had to assume would be used.<\/p>\n<p>The analysis we had to do of EPA\u2019s data tables is quite complicated, so let me just summarize what we found:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There are only two kinds of scenarios under which EPA did find unreasonable risk:\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Scenarios where the risks EPA found are so high that it could not make them go away even <em>after<\/em> assuming that workers would always use the most protective level of PPE that EPA considered<\/strong>. For inhalation exposures, this would be a highly efficient (and highly cumbersome) respirator with an \u201cassigned protection factor\u201d (APF) of 50, i.e., reducing air concentrations by 50-fold.\u00a0 For skin exposures, this would be highly impermeable gloves assumed to provide a \u201cprotection factor\u201d (PF) of 20, i.e., reducing skin contact concentrations by 20-fold.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Scenarios where EPA cannot with a straight face assume <em>any<\/em> use of PPE by the exposed persons<\/strong>. These include consumers and bystanders; workers and bystanders at businesses like dry cleaners; and so-called \u201coccupational non-users\u201d \u2013 workers not directly handling the chemical.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>With one exception, for all conditions of use where EPA found there was not unreasonable risk, in order to reach that finding, <strong>EPA had to assume that all workers were using <em>both<\/em> respirators and gloves<\/strong>. In other words, any worker not using both a respirator and gloves would face an unreasonable risk from inhalation or dermal exposure, based on EPA\u2019s own analysis.\n<ul>\n<li>The exception is consumer exposure to installed insulation, where bizarrely EPA only considered acute, not chronic, exposure.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For <em>both<\/em> kinds of determinations, EPA\u2019s unwarranted approach raises big problems.\u00a0 If EPA uses PPE assumptions to erase unreasonable risks, then it won\u2019t regulate the chemical and will forgo its only opportunity to ensure that PPE is actually used. \u00a0If EPA does find unreasonable risk even with its PPE assumptions, by understating the magnitude of that risk, any subsequent regulation EPA promulgates will be underprotective.<\/p>\n<p>One might think that, before relying so universally and exhaustively on such an assumption, EPA would have developed extensive empirical support for it.\u00a0 One would be wrong.\u00a0 Not only does EPA lack empirical data, it relies instead on assertions volunteered by companies making or using the chemical \u2013 and even this anecdotal, undocumented information is germane to only a small subset of its conditions of use.\u00a0 EPA also grossly misrepresents the authority of the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) and falsely implies that PPE use is mandatory under OSHA regulations when it is not.\u00a0 EPA also ignores numerous reports \u2013 specific to 1-BP \u2013 of PPE being used improperly or not at all, in some cases resulting in severe worker injuries (see, for example, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/niosh\/hhe\/reports\/pdfs\/2008-0175-3111.pdf\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/mmwr\/PDF\/wk\/mm5748.pdf\">here<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Here are some more empirical data:\u00a0 Even where OSHA respiratory protection requirements do apply to a chemical, OSHA\u2019s database of inspections demonstrates significant noncompliance with those requirements.\u00a0 In fiscal year 2018 alone, OSHA cited 2,892 violations of the respiratory protection standard identified in 1,281 separate inspections.\u00a0 Violations of the respiratory standard were the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.osha.gov\/top10citedstandards\">4<sup>th<\/sup> most common type of violation in OSHA inspections<\/a> that year, exceeded only by those for two categories of physical hazard and the Hazard Communication Standard.<\/p>\n<p>But this EPA is not about to let the facts get in its way.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Denison, Ph.D.,\u00a0is a Lead Senior Scientist. We have blogged repeatedly about the ways in which the Trump EPA is compromising workers\u2019 health, either by failing to identify the significant risks they face, or wishing away the risks EPA does identify by erroneously assuming that existing industry practices and OSHA regulations are taking care of &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":9143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,5009,56096,114108,77],"tags":[113939,68,5022],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-9133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-policy","category-health-science","category-omboira","category-tsca","category-worker-safety","tag-1-bromopropane","tag-epa","tag-worker-safety"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9133","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=9133"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12889,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9133\/revisions\/12889"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9133"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}