EPA Extends Notification Deadline for Updates to Confidential Status of Chemicals on the TSCA Inventory
For Release: May 14, 2021
In April 2021, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) posted a list of 390 chemicals by accession number expected to lose their confidential chemical identity status and move to the public portion of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Inventory and gave stakeholders a deadline of May 14, 2021 to notify the agency of any errors on the list. In response to industry stakeholder requests for additional time to review this list, EPA is extending the notification deadline to June 30, 2021.
EPA received letters from the American Chemistry Council and BASF requesting additional time to review the list of chemicals expected to lose their confidential chemical identity status. Specifically, concerns were expressed over the potential that some of the chemicals overlap with those reported under the Active-Inactive rule and the perception that EPA identified these chemicals through reliance only on 2020 Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rule submissions.
In regards to the industry concerns that EPA relied solely on 2020 CDR submissions, EPA plans to declassify the specific identities of these chemicals because they were reported as non-confidential by one or more manufacturers during the 2012, 2016, and/or 2020 CDR reporting periods – meaning that at least one manufacturer did not request that each of the chemical identities be kept confidential, effectively saying it is not a secret that the chemical is in U.S. commerce. Additionally, the agency did an extensive review of each individual instance in which confidential status was not requested for these chemical identities in order to confirm the accuracy of the list.
EPA does acknowledge that some of the chemicals on this list may also have been reported or subject to reporting under the Active-Inactive rule referenced in the industry stakeholder requests. This rule required companies to identify chemicals that were manufactured, imported, or processed in the U.S. during the 10-year time period ending on June 21, 2016. The agency is aware that some entities have claimed there was submitter confusion and questions regarding confidentiality claims during the initial reporting period. However, for each of these 390 chemicals there is also one or more independent CDR-based (and EPA-validated) reasons to consider the chemical identities to be no longer eligible for inclusion on the confidential portion of the Inventory. As EPA has historically done and in accordance with the CDR rule and with the requirements of Section 8 of TSCA, EPA intends to update the TSCA Inventory listings for these chemicals to list the specific chemical identities on the public portion of the Inventory during the summer of 2021.
Consistent with past practice, the listserv notice that was issued in April 2021 provided public notice of the chemical accession numbers that EPA expects to make available on the next update of the public TSCA Inventory. Stakeholders with interest, questions, or concerns about this change in confidential status may contact the EPA staff listed on our webpage no later than June 30, 2021.