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The US Environmental Protection Agency has refined its risk evaluation of 1,3-butadiene, a building block chemical used to make rubber tires, plastics, and resins.
Workers in chemical plants, along with communities near such facilities, will have to wait longer for regulations that aim to reduce cancer and other health risks associated with widely used solvents like trichloroethylene, perchloroethylene, and carbon tetrachloride, and common building block chemicals like formaldehyde and 1,3-butadiene.
While attention has focused on President Donald J. Trump’s moves to gut the federal workforce and slash funding that doesn’t align with his priorities, the US Environmental Protection Agency has been quietly delaying restrictions on many hazardous substances, from asbestos to air pollutants. Environmental groups fear the delays are a first step toward weakening or even eliminating the restrictions.
Many of the targeted chemicals fall under the jurisdiction of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). On March 10, the EPA announced that it will revisit how it conducts risk evaluations under that law, amid widespread disagreement over its current framework. The announcement is the first major indication that the agency plans to revise risk evaluations issued by the previous administration and roll back regulations based on those evaluations.
Since early February, the EPA has also requested delays in several court cases involving regulations that restrict industrial chemicals under TSCA and reduce air emissions from chemical plants under the Clean Air Act. In general, environmental and public health groups are seeking to strengthen the rules. Industry wants more time to comply with them and in some cases wants the EPA to eliminate them altogether.
At the request of industry, the EPA has extended comment periods and postponed an advisory committee meeting related to chemicals undergoing risk evaluation. So far, those actions have put the brakes on restricting three chemicals used in making plastics and a dye.
Political appointees at the top
Overseeing decisions in the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, which is tasked with ensuring the safe use of chemicals under TSCA, are two Trump appointees. Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator Nancy Beck is temporarily leading the office, including its work related to the risks of existing chemicals, and Deputy Assistant Administrator Lynn Dekleva is overseeing the approval of new chemicals. Both officials worked for the EPA during Trump’s first term and previously held senior roles at the American Chemistry Council (ACC), an industry group representing chemical manufacturers.
Trump has yet to nominate an assistant administrator for the EPA’s chemicals office, a position that requires Senate confirmation. In the meantime, Beck is calling the shots. Her return to the EPA in that capacity concerns environmental groups.
“Handing Nancy Beck the reins to the EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention guarantees Americans will suffer greater health harms from unchecked chemical pollution,” says Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “During the first Trump administration, Beck demonstrated unbridled allegiance to the chemical industries she’s long worked to represent. Rather than taking a single step to prevent pollution, she’ll undoubtedly continue to focus solely on preventing any harm to the chemical companies profiting from making pollutants.”
The EPA says those concerns about Beck are insulting and unfounded. “She is a highly qualified, dedicated public servant, and one of the brightest minds in her field committed to upholding EPA’s mission of protecting human health and the environment,” Molly Vaseliou, associate administrator for public affairs at the EPA, says in a statement. “As she has done her entire career, Dr. Beck remains committed to being led by the science rather than beholden to any particular stakeholder group unlike the ethical issues of EPA appointees during the Biden EPA.”
But EPA’s recent actions are still creating concerns even as it expresses the importance of having strong legal and scientific backing for its decisions.
By seeking delays in court cases, extending comment periods, and rescheduling advisory meetings, the EPA is getting further behind in meeting its statutory deadlines related to issuing regulations for chemicals that pose unreasonable risks to human health. Hartl and other environmental advocates worry that even if the EPA issues such regulations in the coming years, they will be watered down and won’t protect human health.
The EPA and industry both want certainty regarding the agency’s legal positions, say lawyers who work closely with chemical companies. “Industry would like predictability and certainty so it can plan accordingly,” says Lynn Bergeson, managing partner at the Washington, DC–based law firm Bergeson & Campbell.
The EPA wants 'to ensure that risk evaluations, and any rules that come as a result of those, are first and most importantly consistent with the law and take into consideration the valuable feedback EPA receives from all its stakeholders.'
Molly Vaseliou, Associate administrator for public affairs, US Environmental Protection Agency
The EPA wants “to ensure that risk evaluations, and any rules that come as a result of those, are first and most importantly consistent with the law and take into consideration the valuable feedback EPA receives from all its stakeholders,” Vaseliou says.
TSCA rules land in court
The EPA finalized rules last year for 5 of the first 10 high-priority chemicals subject to risk evaluation under amendments made to TSCA in 2016. The chemicals have been on the market for decades. All 5 rules are now tied up in various federal appeals courts. Cases are pending in the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit related to the EPA’s rules on asbestos, methylene chloride, and perchloroethylene. In each case, multiple lawsuits filed by both industry and environmental coalitions challenging EPA’s actions were consolidated into one case. Another consolidated case on the EPA’s trichloroethylene rule is pending in the Third Circuit, and one on the EPA’s carbon tetrachloride rule is pending in the Eighth Circuit.
In another TSCA-related lawsuit—this one in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit—the EPA’s framework rule is being challenged by industry (United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manuf v. EPA, case no. 24-1151, with environmental groups intervening on behalf of the EPA. The agency amended that rule, which spells out its approach to reviewing existing chemicals, in April 2024.
Instead of making multiple risk determinations for each use of a chemical, as it did under the first Trump administration, the EPA in the Joe Biden administration chose to make a single risk determination that weighs the risks across multiple uses. The agency also chose to no longer assume that workers are wearing personal protective equipment.
But in a twist, the agency says in the March 10 announcement that it plans to revamp that rule in the near future “for consistency with the law and Administration policy.”
It is a bona fide mess. We're just in this legal quagmire now.
Lynn Bergeson, Managing partner, Bergeson & Campbell
“It is a bona fide mess,” Bergeson says. “We're just in this legal quagmire now.” She points to the similarities in issues that are likely to be brought up in these separate TSCA cases being heard in separate circuits. Given the redundancy, she says, “this is all undoubtedly headed to the Supreme Court.”
EPA seeks court delays
The EPA has asked the courts to put all these TSCA cases on hold—some for 120 days and others for 60 days. In each of the requests, the EPA said that it needs additional time to get up to speed on the lawsuits and underlying rules.
The agency has had mixed success to this point in getting the cases postponed. On Feb. 14, the DC Circuit denied the EPA’s request to delay oral arguments in the framework rule case. Then, after the EPA announced it will revisit the rule on March 10, the agency asked the court to remand the case and again, put it on hold. On March 18, the court again denied the EPA’s request to postpone oral arguments, which are scheduled for March 21.
Credit: AP Photo/Gerald Herbert
Denka Performance Elastomer’s neoprene rubber plant near LaPlace, Louisiana, was targeted by federal officials last year. The firm reached an agreement with the US Environmental Protection Agency on March 5 to end a lawsuit aimed at reducing the facility’s chloroprene emissions.
Also on Feb. 14, the Fifth Circuit granted a 120-day delay in a case related to the EPA’s asbestos rule (Texas Chemistry Council v. EPA, case no. 24-60193), pushing proceedings to mid-June.
The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), a health advocacy group, opposes the delay, saying in a statement that it will allow the EPA “to reassess, and potentially weaken” a rule that bans all remaining uses of chrysotile asbestos in the US. The ADAO is one of the petitioners in the case that is challenging the EPA to strengthen the rule.
Decades of broken promises and unnecessary suffering demand action, not more delays from our government.
Linda Reinstein, President and cofounder, Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization
“Decades of broken promises and unnecessary suffering demand action, not more delays from our government," Linda Reinstein, ADAO president and cofounder, says in the statement. She calls the delay “a disturbing sign that the Trump administration may be preparing to weaken the hard-fought progress we’ve made to protect Americans from asbestos.”
Olin, a petitioner in the case and a chlor-alkali producer that uses asbestos diaphragms to separate chlorine from sodium hydroxide, did not oppose the delay. The firm had requested a 30-day extension to file various court documents, but the court has determined the request as moot now that the case is on hold until mid-June.
The EPA’s rule, which went into effect in May 2024, gives chlor-alkali producers 5 years to transition their first facility away from asbestos diaphragms. Olin and other chlor-alkali producers that have yet to switch to alternative membranes are seeking a longer phaseout.
On Feb. 18, the Fifth Circuit also granted the EPA’s request for a 120-day delay in a case related to its methylene chloride rule (East Fork Enterprises v. EPA, case no. 24-60227) But the court quickly withdrew that order—on Feb. 25—after industry petitioners argued that they are losing money by the day because the rule, which is already in effect, bans them from selling their products.
East Fork and Epic Paint Company, which make paint thinners that contain methylene chloride, are asking the court to vacate the rule. And so is the ACC on behalf of chemical companies that make or use methylene chloride. The petitioners claim that the EPA improperly treated any possible health risk as unreasonable and assessed risks under unrealistic conditions.
The Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group, initially asked the court to send the rule back to the EPA without vacating it so that the agency could address elevated risks of cancer in communities near chemical facilities. The EPA found such risks but failed to address them in the final rule, the group states in an Oct. 9 court brief.
In another closely watched case (United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union v. EPA, case no. 25-1055), the Third Circuit left a temporary stay in place related to the effective date of the EPA’s trichloroethylene rule. The agency issued the rule in December, with an effective date of Jan. 16. But battery makers and others filed petitions in various federal appeals courts for review of the rule.
The Fifth Circuit granted a petition on Jan. 13 to temporarily stay the rule’s effective date. The cases related to trichloroethylene were then consolidated and transferred to the Third Circuit, which left the temporary stay in place. Because of the stay, the rule did not go into effect before the Trump administration took office. To comply with Trump’s Jan. 20 order to freeze for 60 days all regulations that have not yet taken effect, the EPA delayed the effective date of the rule until March 21.
That delay concerns environmental and public health groups because of the toxicity of trichloroethylene (TCE). Exposure to low levels of the chemical is associated with fetal cardiac malformations and immunotoxicity, says Maria Doa, senior director of chemicals policy at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). TCE is also linked to three types of cancers, Parkinson's disease, and liver and kidney disorders, she says.
The EDF is one of several organizations that petitioned the court to review the TCE rule. The environmental group wants the EPA to reduce the amount of time allowed to phase out TCE for some uses.
Doa is worried that delaying the case will allow continuation of some uses of TCE targeted by the rule, including vapor degreasing.
Manufacturers of battery separators and refrigerants want more time to comply with the rule. They also argue that the EPA’s inhalation exposure limit for workers is based on a flawed risk assessment.
Tracking TSCA lawsuits
Joe Biden–era regulations restricting toxic chemicals are being challenged in various federal appeals courts.
Asbestos part 1, chrysotile
Texas Chemistry Council v. EPA
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
Feb. 14: Order to stay proceedings 120 days
Carbon tetrachloride
Olin Corporation v. EPA, et al
Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals
March 3: Environmental Protection Agency response to Olin objection to stay proceedings 120 days
Methylene chloride
East Fork Enterprises v. EPA
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
March 10: Sierra Club withdraws petitioner's brief
Perchloroethylene
FabriClean Supply v. EPA
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
March 12: Order to stay proceedings 60 days; briefing suspended
Trichloroethylene
United Steel Paper and Forestry Rubber Manufacturing Energy Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union AFL CIO v. EPA
Third Circuit Court of Appeals
Jan. 20: Trump executive order puts rule on hold until March 21
March 7 and March 14: Petitioners file disclosure statements
Framework rule for existing chemicals
United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, AFL-CIO v. EPA
DC Circuit Court of Appeals
March 10: EPA motion to remand case and hold in abeyance
March 18: Order denying EPA's motion to postpone oral argument
EPA extends comment periods, revises risks
Lawyers who work in the chemical space say requests to delay litigation are not unusual. “Every incoming administration has, unsurprisingly, and to me, reasonably, asked for opportunities to review the litigation positions the prior administration has asserted in important cases,” Bergeson says.
But Bergeson says she is surprised to see the EPA granting requests from industry to extend comment periods for chemical rules and risk evaluations under TSCA. Since Trump took office, the agency has extended comment periods for a proposed rule on pigment violet 29, a draft scoping document for vinyl chloride, and draft risk evaluations for 1,3-butadiene and dicyclohexyl phthalate.
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“The prior administration was very, very reluctant to extend these comment periods,” Bergeson says. “So this administration is either more generous in granting time and is not adhering to the same schedule, or recognizes that, given the disarray that we're all experiencing, more time might be a good thing.”
The EPA released its draft risk evaluation for 1,3-butadiene in December. The agency found that it poses an unreasonable risk to health from inhalation, particularly for workers and communities near chemical, plastic, or rubber facilities. 1,3-Butadiene is associated with reduced-birthweight pregnancies, adverse effects on blood and the immune system, and leukemia, according to the EPA.
Then, in another twist, the EPA on March 4 released a supplement to the draft evaluation that refines the cancer risk estimates for 1,3-butadiene in air. The agency extended the comment period until March 20 and announced new dates of April 1–4 for a meeting of an external advisory board that will peer-review the new draft evaluation.
Environmental and public health advocates say the delays and revised risk evaluations are symptomatic of the Trump administration’s efforts to stall, weaken, and roll back chemical regulations—particularly those that aim to protect low-income communities that are disproportionately burdened by industrial pollution.
Over the next few months, the EPA will try to get back on track to meet statutory deadlines under TSCA, the EDF’s Doa predicts. But based on what happened during the first Trump administration, the agency “will look at underestimating risks and discounting risks,” she says. She expects the Trump EPA’s rules to be inconsistent with the intent of TSCA, which she says is to assess the risks of a chemical as a whole and to mitigate unreasonable risks. “I really think they won't be protective,” she says.
The American Chemistry Council welcomes the EPA’s move to overhaul how it conducts risk evaluations under TSCA. The March 10 announcement “outlines a path forward to improving timeliness and predictability in TSCA existing chemicals reviews,” ACC CEO Chris Jahn says in a statement. “This approach will help protect American innovation, bring chemical production back to the U.S. and strengthen America’s competitiveness across the globe.”
EPA reconsiders chloroprene risks
The EPA’s delayed action on chemicals goes beyond those that fall under the jurisdiction of TSCA. The agency has also sought to delay cases challenging regulations under the Clean Air Act. One of the cases involves an April 2024 regulation that aims by 80% at more than 200 chemical plants.
Denka Performance Elastomer, a neoprene maker, sued the EPA in July 2024 over the rule, claiming that the agency unfairly gave the firm a much shorter deadline than other companies (Denka Performance Elastomer v. EPA, case no. 24-60351). The EPA gave companies 2 years to comply with the rule but only 90 days to those that use chloroprene to make neoprene.
At the EPA’s request, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit agreed on Feb. 7 to put the case on hold for 120 days to give the new administration time to review the litigation.
In the meantime, the EPA announced March 12 that it will reconsider the regulation as part of a massive deregulatory effort targeting 31 rules issued by the EPA during the Biden administration.
Earlier this month, in keeping with the Trump administration’s commitment to scale back environmental justice work, the Department of Justice on behalf of the EPA also moved to withdraw a case (United States v. Denka Performance Elastomer, civil action no. 2:23-cv-735) that it filed against Denka in 2023. The lawsuit targeted Denka to reduce chloroprene air emissions from its plant near LaPlace, Louisiana.
At the time, the EPA said that people living near the facility have an unacceptably high risk of developing certain cancers from inhalation of chloroprene. The trial was set to begin in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana in April, but the EPA and Denka reached an agreement March 5 to dismiss the case.
The agreement marks “a long-overdue and appropriate end to a case lacking scientific and legal merit from the start,” Denka says in a statement. The company notes that it has invested more than $35 million to mitigate emissions at the neoprene facility.
Denka claims that the EPA relied on a flawed risk assessment of chloroprene by the agency’s Integrated Risk Information System program and 20-year-old data that led it to exaggerate the cancer risk to the surrounding community.
EPA celebrated the agreement as part of its commitment to end environmental justice activities. “The dismissal of this case is a step toward ensuring that environmental enforcement is consistent with the law,” EPA administrator Lee Zeldin says in a statement. “While EPA’s core mission includes securing clean air for all Americans, we can fulfill that mission within well-established legal frameworks, without stretching the bounds of the law or improperly implementing so-called ‘environmental justice’.”. “While EPA’s core mission includes securing clean air for all Americans, we can fulfill that mission within well-established legal frameworks, without stretching the bounds of the law or improperly implementing so-called ‘environmental justice’.”
Chemical & Engineering News
ISSN 0009-2347
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