Reforms Recommended For EPA Chemicals Program

The Environmental Protection Agency needs to make internal reforms to its program on commercial chemicals, the agency's Office of Inspector General (OIG) says in a Feb. 17 report.

One of the major recommendations in the report is for EPA to beef up enforcement of regulations under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Another is to limit protection of information chemical makers submit under TSCA and claim as trade secrets.

OIG finds the agency's enforcement efforts on TSCA lacking, the report says. The enforcement program is supposed to ensure that companies comply with rules governing chemical manufacturing and import. But the work of the agency's TSCA inspectors "is inconsistent and presents a minimal presence," the report says.

EPA performed only 56 TSCA inspections in fiscal 2008, according to the report. This is far fewer than the hundreds of thousands of U.S. facilities expected to be affected by the chemical control law.

"The number of inspectors is declining," OIG finds. There are no TSCA inspectors in Texas or Louisiana, home to numerous chemical manufacturing plants. Likewise, there are no TSCA inspectors in California, where large ports accept shipments of imported chemicals, the report says.

Because EPA's enforcement office measures its success in part by how much penalty money it brings in to the U.S. Treasury, TSCA gets low priority for enforcement, OIG says. Fines for TSCA violations are low compared to infractions of other laws EPA administers, such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.

OIG also criticizes EPA's handling of requests from chemical manufacturers that certain data they provide to the agency is protected from public disclosure. The agency's process is "predisposed to protect industry information rather than to provide public access to health and safety studies," the report says.

Information claimed as a trade secret commonly includes the name of a substance, the manufacturer's name, and where it makes the compound. Such protections for confidential business information typically have no expiration date. In addition, EPA doesn't do any systematic verification or validation of these trade secret claims, OIG finds.

Trade secret claims are made in about half of all company-submitted notices on substances that may pose a substantial risk to human health or the environment, the report says. This affects the usefulness of the notices, OIG says. "Health and safety data are of limited value," OIG points out, "if the chemical the data pertain to is unknown."

The report recommends that EPA establish a time limit for all confidentiality claims related to health and safety data. The agency should also develop detailed guidance laying out criteria for approving protections for trade secrets under TSCA, it says.

In addition, OIG recommends that EPA develop a strategy for assessing the risk of certain new chemicals or classes of substances. These risk assessment should focus on low-level exposures to a single compound and cumulative exposure to multiple chemicals.

In a letter attached to the report, EPA Deputy Administrator Robert Perciasepe says that OIG's recommendations were consistent with agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson's priorities for strengthening TSCA implementation (C&EN, Oct. 19, 2009, page 28). Perciasepe indicated the agency would put OIG's suggestions into practice.