Herb Estreicher Quoted in Chemical Watch Article

Keller and Heckman Partner Herb Estreicher was quoted in the Chemical Watch article, “EPA Reviewing Plan to Reopen TSCA Inventory to Address CBI Errors.” The article discusses how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has confirmed that its plan to reopen the TSCA inventory to allow businesses to fix confidentiality errors is "undergoing review", following a directive from President Biden to assess pending actions carried over from the past administration. 

The scrutiny of the policy calls into question whether companies that had planned to use the additional notification period to correct reporting errors related to confidential business information (CBI) claims will still have an opportunity to do so.

The Trump EPA announced last month that it would reopen the TSCA “active-inactive” inventory reporting period, citing "submitter confusion and issues" regarding CBI claims made during the “inventory reset” reporting exercise. President Biden, however, paused the policy when he signed a “regulatory freeze” executive order on his first day in office. While some welcomed the EPA’s scrutiny of the rule, others disagreed that the agency should change course. 

"I don’t see why the process should change," Herb said. "It seems a sensible accommodation for companies to remedy problems that occurred due to a good faith misunderstanding of the CBI requirements."

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