Review - OMB Approves Two Generic TSCA ICRs

Yesterday the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had approved two EPA information collection requests { TSCA Existing Chemical Risk Evaluation and Management - Generic ICR for Surveys (2070-0218) and TSCA Existing Chemical Risk Evaluation and Management; Generic ICR for Interviews and Focus Groups (2070-0219)}. The EPA would use these ICRs to request chemical safety information on new investigations without having to go through the ICR submission process for each new investigation.

The EPA justified both ICRs on the basis that in support of the requirements of §6 of TSCA (pg 26) “EPA needs sufficient information about chemicals undergoing risk evaluation and risk management, including information related to the chemicals’ conditions of use, hazards, exposures, potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulations, health and environmental effects, benefits, reasonably ascertainable economic consequences, alternatives, and other information.” Given the time frame requirements of §6(c), the EPA would not be able to submit an ICR for each required investigation.

The EPA notes that the information collected in both ICRs would be shared with the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

Commentary

The use of generic ICRs initially seems to run counter to the whole purpose of the Information Collection Request process. The purpose of ICRs is to ensure that government agencies do not misuse their power to collect information to either overwhelm businesses with reporting requirements nor demand information for which they have little, or perhaps even no legal basis, to collect. Having said that, the ICR process is a time consuming, bureaucratic process. In instances like these, where the legal justification for the collection of the information concerned would be the same for each separate investigation pursued by the EPA pursuant to §6 of TSCA, it seems clear to me that in this case, at least, the EPA is justified in simplifying the bureaucratic process.

I am concerned, however, with the reported intent of the EPA to share the information collected, presumably with appropriate CBI protections, with the OSHA and CPSC. To be sure, another responsibility of the ICR approval process is the avoidance of duplicate information activities, but it is not clear that either OSHA or CPSC would have specific authority to collect the data outlined in these ICRs.

Sharing of chemical safety information between various regulatory and oversight agencies is an important part of ensuring that all agencies have the applicable information necessary to discharge their legal responsibilities. But agencies collecting voluntary information from the private sector have a clear responsibility to outline what information they intend to share with other agencies and request public comment on what limits would be appropriate for the sharing of that information.

For more details about these information collection requests, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/omb-approves-two-generic-tsca-icrs - subscription required.