On March 10, 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its intent to reconsider the May 3, 2024, rule amending the procedural framework rule for conducting risk evaluations under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) (2024 Risk Evaluation Framework Rule). According to EPA, it will initiate a rulemaking “that will ensure the agency can efficiently and effectively protect human health and the environment and follow the law.”

As reported in our February 7, 2025, blog item, earlier this year, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the “Powering the Great American Comeback” initiative to advance EPA’s core mission while energizing the American economy. EPA notes in its March 10, 2025, press release that under TSCA, EPA is charged with reviewing “the thousands of chemicals already in commerce to make sure they don’t harm people or the environment, supporting Pillar One of the Administrator’s initiative, clean air, land and water for every American, as well as Pillar Three to advance permitting reform, cooperative federalism and cross-agency partnership by better integrating best workplace standards from across the Federal government and industry and aiming to adhere to Congress’s tight timelines for risk evaluations.”

Consistent with President Trump’s Executive Order 14219 requiring the review of regulations to ensure consistency with Administration policy and agencies’ statutory authority, EPA reviewed the 2024 Risk Evaluation Framework Rule, which outlines the process EPA must follow when conducting chemical risk evaluations. EPA states that after completing its review and considering public comments and concerns, including those from other federal agencies, it “intends to initiate further rulemaking in the near future that will reexamine multiple aspects of this rule for consistency with the law and Administration policy.” In its rulemaking, EPA will review whether the approach taken by the Biden Administration to make a single risk determination for a chemical is consistent with TSCA. EPA will also include, among additional considerations, whether the Agency must evaluate all conditions of use of a chemical at the same time in the three years generally allotted by Congress to conduct this review. Additionally, EPA will reconsider whether and how the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) and industrial controls in an occupational work environment should be incorporated into risk evaluations. According to EPA, it will reconsider regulatory definitions expanded by the Biden Administration and evaluate whether the regulation should define terms more broadly than the definitions in the statute. More information on the 2024 Risk Evaluation Framework Rule is available in our May 14, 2024, memorandum.

Commentary

Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. (B&C^®) is pleased that EPA is reconsidering the rule. As we discussed in our May 14, 2024, memorandum, we identified several significant flaws in the final rule.

This announcement is consistent with EPA’s request that the courts remand, without vacatur, the ongoing legal challenge to the rule (United Steel, Paper, and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, AFL-CIO v. EPA, Case No. 24-1151 (D.C. Cir. 2024), USW v. EPA). Whether the courts will grant EPA’s motion is unclear. The labor unions and environmental non-governmental organizations (NGO) that intervened oppose the motion.

In a post-Loper Bright world, a court decision in USW v EPA on one of the key provisions being challenged, such as the single determination approach, could be a much more durable result than if the court finds that EPA does not have discretion to interpret the statute in that way.

Regardless of whether the case is remanded without vacatur, the 2024 Risk Evaluation Framework Rule will remain in effect, so EPA’s ongoing TSCA Section 6 work will have to conform with the current rule.