POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE EPA’S PLAN TO INCORPORATE CUMULATIVE RISK ASSESSMENT INTO IMPLEMENTATION OF THE TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT
On 24 February 2023, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the drafts of potentially precedent-setting cumulative risk assessment (CRA) documents designed to incorporate CRA into the regulation of chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the agency’s most powerful statutory authority for the control of hazardous chemicals.
The TSCA requires the EPA to determine whether chemicals present an unreasonable risk of injury to human health or the environment and, if so, to eliminate the unreasonable risk. The statute focuses on the actual conditions of use (during the life cycle from manufacturing through disposal) and the risks to subpopulations, “such as infants, children, pregnant women, workers, or the elderly”, that, “due to either greater susceptibility or greater exposure, may be at greater risk…of adverse health effects”. Section 5 of the TSCA deals with new chemicals and new uses of existing chemicals. Section 6 of the TSCA deals with current uses of existing chemicals, which is the current context of this CRA initiative; but there is no reason to conclude the EPA would not attempt to extend its use to the section 5 regulation.
CRA has been a topic of scientific and political discussion in the public domain since at least 1994. The EPA’s 2003 ‘Framework for Cumulative Risk Assessment’ defines CRA as the “quantification of the combined risks to human health or the environment from multiple agents or stressors”, with the term “stressors” encompassing both chemical stressors and non-chemical stressors (radiological, biological and other physical stressors, lifestyle conditions, and socioeconomic stressors).
Apr-Jun 2023 Issue
Keller & Heckman LLP