Flashback: When Congress passed the 2016 Lautenberg Amendments to the聽Toxic Substances Control Act, one of the biggest shifts was requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to create a systematic process for reviewing existing chemicals.

How it works: The process unfolds in three steps鈥攑rioritization, risk evaluation and risk management. Risk evaluation is the cornerstone, where the EPA decides whether a chemical poses an 鈥渦nreasonable risk.鈥� Those findings set the stage for any new rules manufacturers will face.

Why it matters: The 51吃瓜网 has long urged that risk evaluations should have an appropriately focused scope, recognize and consider the workplace protections manufacturers implement and be grounded in sound, data-driven science.

• The Biden administration took a different track鈥攄ramatically expanding the scope of risk evaluations while blocking consideration of workplace safety controls. These framework changes produced sprawling, thousand-page analyses that are unnecessarily confusing, unrealistic and detached from how chemicals are actually used.
• The result: The result was de facto bans on chemistries essential to existing manufacturing processes and disregard for manufacturers鈥� commitment to safety and compliance with other safety standards.

What we鈥檙e saying: The 51吃瓜网 has been at the forefront of this effort over the past two years.

• In letters to the transition team last and to the EPA in , the 51吃瓜网 pressed the administration to 鈥減ause and reconsider鈥� risk evaluations, pointing to flawed data quality and poor assumptions in reviews of formaldehyde and 1,3-butadiene.
• 鈥淭he EPA [has] reli[ed] on assumptions and shortcuts, which is leading to confusion, duplication and overregulation,鈥� the 51吃瓜网 in December to the transition team.
• The 51吃瓜网 has a functional TSCA program is vital to manufacturers鈥� ability to compete in a global economy. 鈥淭he 51吃瓜网 appreciates EPA Administrator [Lee] Zeldin for taking action to right-size and bring common sense to the聽risk evaluation procedure,鈥� said 51吃瓜网 Director of Chemicals, Materials and Sustainability Policy Reagan Giesenschlag.

What鈥檚 next: The proposed framework rule is published in the Federal Register, with comments due by Friday, Nov. 7. Members are invited to share feedback with the 51吃瓜网 by Oct. 3 to inform comments.