EPA Increases Transparency on Chemical Risk Information; Action Part of Continued Comprehensive Reform of Toxic Substance Laws

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Jan. 21 announced a new policy to increase public access to chemical information.

EPA is rejecting the confidentiality claim, known as Confidential Business Information (CBI), on the identity of chemicals. The chemicals that will be affected by this action are those that are submitted to EPA with studies that show a substantial risk to people's health and the environment and have been previously disclosed on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Chemical Inventory.

Under TSCA, companies may claim a range of sensitive, proprietary information as CBI. Under Section 8(e) of TSCA, companies that manufacture, process, or distribute chemicals are required to immediately provide notice to EPA if they learn that a chemical presents a substantial risk of injury to health or the environment. The Section 8(e) reports are made available on EPA’s web site. However, up until the Jan. 21 announcement, companies could routinely claim confidentiality for the actual identity of the chemical covered by the Section 8(e) submission. The public posting of the information did not have to include the name of the chemical. The new policy ends this practice for chemicals on the public portion of the TSCA Inventory.

In the coming months, EPA intends to announce additional steps to further increase transparency of chemical information.

For more information on the new policy, visit http://www.epa.gov/oppt/tsca8e/, and for information on EPA’s principles for comprehensive TSCA reform, visit http://www.epa.gov/oppt/existingchemicals/pubs/principles.html.

For more information: contact ACA's Stacey-Ann Taylor.

Date Posted: January 29, 2010