David Fischer Quoted in Inside TSCA Article on Interpreting TSCA “Unreasonable Risk” Bar

Keller and Heckman Counsel David Fischer was quoted in the Inside TSCA article, “EPA Officials Detail Efforts To Interpret TSCA ‘Unreasonable Risk’ Bar.” The article discusses the confusion over how to interpret the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) “unreasonable risk” language, which has come to recent light due to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s draft TSCA risk management rules on the halogenated solvents methylene chloride and perchloroethylene (PCE). The article points to Keller and Heckman’s June 21, 2023 TSCA 30/30 webinar, where David argued that the solvent rules created for the first time a “bright line” standard for unreasonable risk, in the form of their existing chemical exposure limits (ECELs). According to David, those proposed levels are so stringent that it “appears that unreasonable risk is now the absence of nearly any potential risk of adverse effects...Is that what the regulated community thinks that unreasonable risk should be?”

David also added that while he was working at EPA, officials avoided defining “unreasonable risk” because the agency had other priorities at the time.

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