Providing Data On Chemicals

Chemical makers would have to provide data about production, processing, and use of their compounds every four years rather than the current five-year cycle, under a proposal the Environmental Protection Agency announced Aug. 11.

The proposal targets reports that chemical producers must submit to the agency generally twice a decade under the Toxic Substances Control Act. EPA uses the data to update the TSCA Inventory, which covers chemicals in commerce. The agency also requires companies to provide processing and use information, which EPA has used to estimate exposure to a compound.

Companies last reported this information in 2006. The next submissions are due in 2011. The upcoming reports are to include data on a company's manufacturing, processing, and use of chemicals in 2010 and its production volume information for the 2006 to 2009 period.

The proposed four-year cycle is not new. For decades, this was the period chemical makers had to follow. But under President George W. Bush, EPA changed this time frame to five years. The longer span went into effect in 2005.

The agency seeks other changes as well. The proposal would require companies to substantiate up front their claims that data they submit to EPA in these reports should be protected as confidential business information.

This marks the agency's latest move under Administrator Lisa P. Jackson to clamp down on widespread – and sometimes unnecessary -- trade secret claims in the chemical industry's submissions under TSCA (C&EN, April 19, page 28).

The proposed rule "will allow the agency to more effectively and expeditiously identify and address potential chemical risks and improve the information available to the public on chemicals most commonly used in commerce," says Steve Owens, EPA assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety & Pollution Prevention.

"Appropriate chemical hazard, use, and exposure information should be available to the public, leveraging advances in electronic reporting," says Scott Jensen, spokesman for the American Chemistry Council, a chemical industry group. ACC is concerned about the amount of time and effort required for companies to gather and file the data that EPA is seeking in the proposal, he says. The trade association is also probing the proposal's "impact on reasonable claims for the protection of proprietary information," Jensen adds.

The agency expects to finalize the changes by mid-2011.

More information is available at http://www.epa.gov/oppt/iur/index.html.