On December 11, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) convened its public meeting on possible approaches for identifying potential candidates for prioritization under the amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  Key presenters were Jeffery Morris, Ph.D., Directory of OPPT, as well as several other OPPT staff, Health Canada (HC) and Environmental and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), and Russell S. Thomas with EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD).

The presentations from the meeting are listed below and available on EPA's website:

• Identifying Potential Candidates for Prioritization: Background, Goal, Guiding Principles, and Milestones -- Dr. Morris, Director, OPPT

• Overview of TSCA Work Plan Methodology -- Maria Doa, Director, Chemical Control Division, OPPT

• Approaches to Identifying Potential Candidate Chemicals for Prioritization:  The TSCA Work Plan as a Tool for Identifying Potential Candidates -- Dan Chang, OPPT

• Approaches to Identifying Potential Candidate Chemicals for Prioritization:  Approaches to Prioritization and to Streamlined Assessments -- Canada’s Chemical Management Plan – HC and ECCC

• Approaches to Identifying Potential Candidate Chemicals for Prioritization:  EPA’s Safer Chemical Ingredients List (SCIL) -- Clive Davies and Lauren Sweet, OPPT

• Approaches to Identifying Potential Candidate Chemicals for Prioritization: Functional Category Approach Based on Use and Exposure Potential -- Joel Wolf and Ana Corado, OPPT

• Approaches to Identifying Potential Candidate Chemicals for Prioritization:  Integration of Traditional and New Approach Methods -- Russell S. Thomas, ORD

Nancy Beck, Ph.D. opened the workshop by welcoming attendees and provided some overview remarks.  Dr. Beck noted that the workshop could result in more than one approach being considered, or could result in no process being adopted.  Dr. Beck explained why EPA does not wish to prioritize chemicals with poor datasets.  Unless EPA has sufficient information to conclude there is no unreasonable risk, EPA must proceed with risk evaluations within the specified timelines with increased uncertainties.  This will result in a risk management process that has numerous default assumptions and uncertainty that will be difficult to defend.  Such risk management results will likely be subject to litigation, which will be costly in terms of time and resources to both EPA and the stakeholders. 

Dr. Morris stated that EPA hopes to implement a pre-prioritization approach by June 2018 to help ensure prioritization can begin in December 2018.

In its review of potential adjustments to the TSCA Work Plan for Chemical Assessments (TSCA Work Plan) approach, EPA staff clarified that there would be no changes to the current TSCA Work Plan chemical list last updated in 2014.  It was suggested that EPA could rely on the current TSCA Work Plan approach as an interim method for pre-prioritization as EPA works to refine other approaches.  EPA acknowledged that neither the current TSCA Work Plan approach nor the SCIL process included screens for certain criteria articulated in the amended TSCA legislation, including storage near significant sources of drinking water. 

Based on comments by presenters at the workshop and references in EPA documentation, it appears that chemical substances of unknown or variable composition, complex reaction products and biological materials (UVCB) will be difficult to screen in the pre-prioritization approaches reviewed.

In response to EPA’s comment that active substances will be the starting point for pre-prioritization screening, one non-governmental organization (NGO) group raised concerns with legacy issues that might be associated with inactive substances (e.g., substances contained in products or materials that have been in use for years).  NGO groups also commented that the hurdle for identifying a high priority chemical should be relatively low; whereas the hurdle for identifying a low priority chemical should be very high and could potentially include a required minimum data set.

All stakeholders expressed appreciation to EPA for the presentations and the various approaches reviewed.  During the public comments, there did not appear to be specific support for any one approach. 

We note that none of the approaches included specifics as to how EPA would assess whether the chemical being reviewed had sufficient data available to initiate prioritization and potential risk evaluation.  Given EPA’s clear objective to avoid having data-poor chemicals being prioritized, this issue needs to be clearly and definitively addressed in EPA’s practices.  Nor was there consideration as to how other governmental regulatory assessments could be incorporated into a pre-prioritization approach.

EPA will be accepting comments on the approach to prioritizing chemicals until January 25, 2018, in Docket ID EPA-HQ-OPPT-2017-0586.  More information on the December 6, 2017, public meeting on EPA’s new chemicals review program is available in our blog under key phrase  public meeting.