OMB Approves EPA TSCA Guidance Document

Yesterday the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs announced the approval of the publication of a new EPA guidance document supporting the implementation of some of the requirements of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (PL 114-182). Specifically, this document, “Guidance to Assist Interested Persons in Developing and Submitting Draft Risk Evaluations Under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)”, should provide information to industry in determining what information should be included in requesting EPA risk evaluations under 15 USC 2605 as modified by §6 of the Act (130 Stat 460).

OIRA was pretty quick in approving this publication (submitted on June 13^th), especially considering that it was substantially written under the Obama Administration. It is unclear how soon this will be published by the EPA since two of the regulations that this supports are still under review by OIRA (here and here) at the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) stage. Technically this could move forward without those rules being approed since those regulations probably have more effect on EPA actions taken on the submitted data than upon industry submitting the data.

Obviously, the Trump Administration will not meet the June 22^nd (today) deadline for implementing the requirements of §6. To be fair neither would have the Obama Administration. That deadline was totally unrealistic given the rulemaking process and the complexity of the issues involved. I do suspect that we will see the two TSCA NPRMs published this summer.