As House and Senate leaders complete a bicameral conference on pending fiscal year 2020 defense legislation, supporters of strict policies governing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are stepping up efforts to sway lawmakers to include measures that would speed and require strict EPA regulation of the chemicals.
Researchers, including a former top government scientist, are urging regulators to assess and manage flame retardant chemicals as a class in order to reduce regrettable substitution of unsafe alternatives, an approach that EPA does not currently appear to be considering in its Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) analyses of existing chemicals.
A group of experts peer reviewing EPA’s new model for estimating lead concentrations in humans praised the agency’s years-long effort to build a more advanced model of lead exposures and concentrations but urged the agency to clarify its applications and audience, suggesting it may not be well suited to some uses, including regulatory uses.
Environmental, labor and industry groups are making competing calls for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit to either remand or alter to EPA a rule barring consumer uses of paint-stripping products containing methylene chloride, as they push the court to back their claims of deficiencies in the agency’s rulemaking.
The new guidance aims to reduce the number of incomplete applications to treat and dispose of polychlorinated biphenyls and the time EPA spends approving them.
Rep. Paul Tonko’s (D-NY) long-pending bill to codify Obama-era scientific integrity policies at EPA and elsewhere cleared a milestone Oct. 17 as Republicans largely dropped their opposition to its passage.
EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program is launching an effort to analyze three inorganic mercury salts at the request of the agency’s Superfund office, which could potentially use the eventual results to make risk determinations on short- and long-term remedial cleanup actions at sites contaminated with the substances.
The three new members who are employed by a federal laboratory, a state environmental agency and an environmental group mark a shift from the Trump administration’s earlier focus on industry representation.
Former EPA Administrators Gina McCarthy and William Reilly are urging Congress to approve Democrats’ bill to ban asbestos, fearing the Trump administration will not impose the prohibition otherwise.
The Pentagon’s Inspector General (IG) is launching a limited “evaluation” into the Defense Department’s (DOD) use of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) at military sites.