Chemicals Advisory Panel Dismantled

EPA has quietly terminated a committee that provided advice about chemical regulatory policy. The National Pollution Prevention & Toxics Advisory Committee had been moribund since October 2006, when two representatives of environmental groups and an academician resigned (C&EN, Oct. 9, 2006, page 26). In a notice posted to the agency's website in late November, EPA said the panel, formed in 2002, "has completed its charge" and will no longer meet. The committee's biggest, and perhaps most influential, project involved recommending a method for screening toxicity data provided by chemical makers for hundreds of substances manufactured in volumes of at least 1 million lb per year. The agency informed the committee's remaining members that it will no longer be enlisting panels of outside advisers to provide recommendations on chemical policy. Instead, it will seek input from individual stakeholders at meetings the agency convenes on specific issues or at EPA-sponsored conferences, according to a letter from James B. Gulliford, EPA's assistant administrator for prevention, pesticides, and toxic substances.