On May 16, 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it has updated its Statistics for the New Chemicals Review Program under TSCA webpage, which is under EPA’s Reviewing New Chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) section, to make it easier to find and understand how many chemicals are in each stage of the new chemical review process.  The revised webpage now includes a flow chart showing the number of new chemicals cases (premanufacture notices (PMN), significant new use notices (SNUN), and microbial commercial activity notices (MCAN)) at each stage of review and detailed descriptions of each step in the process.

EPA states that these changes “are the first step in a larger effort to increase the transparency of the new chemicals program and ensure stakeholders and the public can quickly and easily view EPA’s progress in reviewing new chemicals submissions as the Agency receives them.”  EPA Assistant Administrator Alexandra Dunn has repeatedly expressed her and EPA’s commitment to enhance the transparency of EPA’s operations, and this latest development reflects that commitment.