SOCMA Members Advocate Against Negative Changes to TSCA New Chemicals Rule at White House Meeting

July 17, 2024

This week, SOCMA brought members to a White House meeting to advocate on behalf of the specialty chemical industry regarding negative changes to the TSCA New Chemicals Review Program in EPA’s proposed rule:

Updates to New Chemicals Regulations Under the Toxic Substances Control Act.

SOCMA members Alan Dyke, Vice President of Business Development at ProChem, Inc., Allison Betancourt, Regulatory Affairs Manager at Colonial Chemical, Brian Burkhart, Vice President of Fine Chemicals Products at Milliken Company, and Rich Prezzioti, CEO of Boulder Scientific Company, shared their experiences with the current program and explained how the increasingly burdensome changes in this rule would negatively impact their businesses and discourage innovation in the US chemical industry.

Some of the key issues that SOCMA and its members have emphasized in the rule are:

  • EPA proposes increasing the already problematic oral suspension times from 15 to 30 days.
  • EPA’s proposal to restart the 90-day clock if a submitter provides additional information that was, according to a subjective standard, “known to or reasonably ascertainable by” the company.
  • The principle set by EPA’s proposal to deny PFAS chemistries for LoREXs and LVEs should be its free-standing rulemaking, not couched in a procedural rule.
  • The proposed up-front data requirements.

SOCMA and members also worked to educate the White House on missed opportunities in the proposed rule:

  • Clarifying EPA assumptions often lead to unnecessary data requests and testing.
  • EPA’s need for assumption of compliance with other regulations (such as OSHA standards).
  • Lessening EPA’s excessive use of Significant New Use Rules (SNURs), which often encumber the submitter to the extent that the chemical cannot be manufactured from a practical perspective (RH2).

Contact:
Robert Helminiak 
Vice President of Legal and Government Relations 
rhelminiak@socma.org

 

 

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