Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. Yesterday Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) filed more than 100 pages of comments on a 40-page draft risk evaluation the Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has prepared for Pigment Violet 29 (PV29).  PV29 is the first of 10 chemicals undergoing risk evaluations under the Toxic Substances Control Act […]

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. Jennifer McPartland, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist. We blogged before the holiday break about how EPA used a single, unverified and conflicted estimate of worker exposure to build a whole house of cards and then used it to conclude that Pigment Violet 29 (or PV29) poses no risk to human […]

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. I’ve been blogging about the deep problems surrounding the first draft risk evaluation the Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released under the recently amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  This risk evaluation, which is now out for public comment, is on a chemical commonly called Pigment […]

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. I blogged last week about the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) illegal and hypocritical decision to deny the public access to health and safety studies conducted on the first chemical to undergo a risk evaluation under the reformed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  In its draft risk evaluation, now […]

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. The chemical industry has long sought to have the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rubber-stamp as “safe” as many of its chemicals as possible without imposing any burden on the industry to develop the information needed to actually demonstrate safety.  It has repeatedly pushed for EPA to set aside […]

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. Nary a day goes by without a complaint being lodged by someone in the chemical industry, or in one of the myriad law firms that represent its interests in Washington, D.C., about the delays in EPA’s approval of new chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Here’s […]

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. News reports today indicate that the President is nominating Alexandra Dapolito Dunn for Assistant Administrator of EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, which implements the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Here is our first take on what she will be facing and need to do, if […]

Ryan O’Connell is a High Meadows Fellow; Jennifer McPartland, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist. Last night, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) submitted critical comments on EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics’ (OPPT) “systematic review” document that OPPT is using to evaluate chemicals’ risks under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Systematic review, a hallmark of […]

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. Last night, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) submitted more than 200 pages of comments providing a detailed critique of each of the “problem formulations” EPA issued in June for the first 10 chemicals in commerce undergoing risk evaluations under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  EDF also delivered 45,000 […]

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. Part 1               Part 2               Part 3 I’ve been blogging over the last week about how political appointees at EPA are starting to clear new chemicals to enter commerce based on a new – apparently unwritten and certainly not public – review process that ignores the law and will […]

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. Part 1               Part 2               Part 3 I blogged last week about how political appointees at EPA are starting to clear new chemicals to enter commerce based on a new – apparently unwritten and certainly not public […]

Samantha Lovell is a Project Specialist. Lindsay McCormick, is a Project Manager. Today, families from across the country came to Washington, DC to tell lawmakers how the toxic chemical trichloroethylene (TCE) has impacted their lives. TCE is a known human carcinogen that is toxic to the immune system and kidney, and can cause fetal heart damage […]

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. Part 1               Part 2               Part 3 Overruling the recommendations of its own longtime professional staff, political appointees at EPA have begun green-lighting new chemicals to enter commerce using an approach that shows contempt for the letter […]

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. In a letter sent today to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, six Senators who were instrumental to achieving the 2016 Lautenberg Act’s reforms to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) raised “serious concern” about further weakening changes EPA is poised to make in its review […]

Lindsay McCormick, is a Project Manager. Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. Yesterday, EDF filed comments on several draft EPA documents that are part of the basis for developing restrictions EPA is required to impose on five persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemicals under the 2016 reforms made to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  […]

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. EDF has learned from multiple sources that political appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are on the verge of taking yet another huge lurch away from what the 2016 reforms to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) require when EPA reviews the safety of new chemicals prior […]

EPA today revealed its severely flawed approach to reviewing the risks to health and the environment posed by the first 10 chemicals being evaluated under the newly reformed chemical safety law, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  These chemicals were selected in 2016 because of their potential dangers to the health of American families, but […]

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.  Stephanie Schwarz, J.D., is a Legal Fellow. Yesterday EDF filed extensive comments on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposal for the last of the so-called “framework rules” called for under the 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  This rule, once finalized, will establish the “user fees” […]

Lindsay McCormick is a Project Manager and Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. Last week, EPA signaled it will advance a delayed rule regulating consumer and worker use of methylene chloride-based paint strippers.  Numerous details of EPA’s announcement remain to be filled in, and we caution EPA to avoid approaches short of the ban that was proposed. […]

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.  Ryan O’Connell, EDF High Meadows Fellow, and Stephanie Schwarz, EDF Legal Fellow, assisted in the research informing this post. [UPDATED 5-15-18:  See clarifications and a correction added in brackets below.] As noted in a previous blog post, EDF recently filed a request for an extension of the public comment […]