Herb Estreicher Quoted in Article on EPA Plan to Redo Evaluations, Violating Framework Rule

Keller and Heckman Partner Herb Estreicher was quoted in the Inside TSCA article, “Attorneys Say EPA Plan to Redo Evaluations Could Violate Framework Rule.” The article discusses how an industry attorney says that, if the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) follows through on its plan to convert risk findings in Trump-era TSCA chemical evaluations to make a single risk finding for each chemical, it could run afoul of the 2017 rule establishing a “framework” for the evaluations, which the agency is planning to redo but could struggle to complete in time.

“Does EPA have to re-propose their risk evaluation rule? I think absolutely they do,” Herb said during the firm’s June 9 TSCA 30/30 webinar on legal and implementation issues for the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

The agency has outlined plans to drop the practice of making separate risk findings for each chemical use it studies and instead determine whether use of a chemical under review poses “unreasonable risk” that requires regulation.

However, Herb noted that the 2017 rule where EPA set out its procedure for existing-chemical evaluations – one of a handful of “framework” rules designed to guide implementation of the 2016 TSCA reforms – explicitly forbids such an approach.

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