Toxics

Carlton Waterhouse, EPA’s top political appointee in the waste office, says he is pursuing efforts to counter lead contamination by breaking up past “silos” in which separate agency divisions tackle different aspects of lead pollution, and instead is pursuing a “whole government approach” to reducing lead exposures and promoting equity.

EPA is planning to subject a host of new chemicals and facilities to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) reporting requirements, including all chemicals on the TSCA “high-priority” list and Obama-era workplan, as well as requiring some previously exempt facilities that work with ethylene oxide (EtO) to participate in the program.

EPA says it will largely halt use of TSCA’s “low-volume exemption” (LVE) when approving use of new per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and plans to “work cooperatively” with industry to withdraw some past approvals, even as environmentalists are pushing to block use of any such exemptions when approving PFAS.

EPA intends to seek voluntary remand of the Trump-era TSCA evaluation of hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) and other flame retardants in order to reconsider its findings that some of their uses pose no unreasonable risks, in what could be the Biden administration’s first concrete step to tighten findings in some of the agency’ first 10 assessments.