WASHINGTON (March 15, 2017) – The American Chemistry Council (ACC) today issued the following statement with regard to our comments on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) draft rule for EPA to designate chemical substances on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Chemical Substance Inventory as either “active” or “inactive” in U.S. commerce, as required by the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (LCSA):
“We are pleased to comment on EPA’s Proposed ‘Inventory Reset’ Rule, one of three major framework rules required by the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act amendment to TSCA. The long-term success of the amended law depends on a systematic, timely process of risk evaluation of chemicals, and the Inventory Reset is the first step of that process, sorting chemicals on the Inventory based on their status as active or inactive in commerce.
“We commend the Agency for offering an approach to the Reset that delivers on the simple notification process expressed in the statute. This is important, because the Reset will still be a major undertaking requiring substantial time and effort from companies, as well as EPA staff. EPA’s proposal not to require re-notification about chemicals already known to be active in commerce from the 2012 and 2016 Chemical Data Reporting cycles is particularly helpful to reducing the overall burden of this exercise.
“It is particularly important that EPA remove mandates for supplemental information that go beyond what the simple notification described in the statute require. EPA should build quality assurance steps into the process, and will need to be vigilant to ensure that its online reporting system, CDX, can support the Reset. As the Agency reviews public comments, ACC encourages EPA to make these and additional improvements to the process for even greater efficiencies.”