President Biden has signed Executive Orders to take action on regulations of chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act. #Firefighters are at higher risk of exposure to these harmful chemicals. Improved standards will better protect them #firefightersfirst

In an effort to understand better what this message meant, I asked a number of allies if they could help us understand.

Here is a response from Melanie Benesh, Legislative Attorney for Environmental Working Group:

Melanie Benesh | EWG's Experts

Hi Diane,

I think the tweet is referring to this executive order requiring agencies to re-review and change several Trump-issued regulations:

Executive Order on Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the…

The list of regulations that will be reviewed and changed include TSCA regulations, including regulations about how the agency evaluates the risks from chemicals and ultimately regulates them. Those changes will result in more health-protective chemical restrictions: https://mailchi.mp/bidentransition/ascertainment-news-statement-3590426

FACT SHEET: LIST OF AGENCY ACTIONS FOR REVIEW

thank you Melanie.

From Dr Graham Peaslee, Professor of Physics, Notre Dame

Notre Dame professor is ambassador for 'Dark Waters' film

Diane,

Melanie has it correct. There was the first significant reform in 40 years to TSCA, which was passed by house and senate and signed into law in 2016 — after years of work.

https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca/frank-r-lautenberg-chemical-safety-21st-century-act#:~:text=On%20June%2022%2C%202016%2C%20the,nation's%20primary%20chemicals%20management%20law.

Summary of the Toxic Substances Control Act | US EPA

This was a target for the Trump administration and they issued an executive order which edited and curtailed that reform bill in July 2017. They also stripped out any regulation of gas & oil for global warming and several other environmental provisions for EPA and other departments. They also proposed to cut funding 30% to the EPA and reduce personnel 25%. These cuts were not passed by congress, but the executive orders still neutralized some of the features of the TSCA reform bill.

Biden’s executive orders this week are all aimed at canceling out these executive actions by the Trump administration. Yesterday that was immigration, today it included TSCA and 47 of the other related EPA orders that Trump signed to dismantle the agency’s ability to regulate.

This means there will be renewed interest in reforming the way chemicals are treated when they are brought to market. It doesn’t not have any impact directly on occupational exposure as far as I can read…EPA is concerned with the environment and public health…but TSCA being stronger would help in general for new chemicals entering the market.

Of course TSCA is still a pretty weak regulation compared to Europe or Australia, etc. but I suspect there will be a push to try to get the health advisory limits for PFAS converted into enforceable Maximum Contaminant Levels for at least a few of the PFAS in drinking water, and that is much more likely to pass under the current administration. Hope this helps ~

Graham

Thank you Graham ~

dc 1.24.2021