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Chemical Regulation

US labs could get more time to meet EPA’s methylene chloride rule

The agency’s proposal would give nonfederal labs an additional 18 months to comply with workplace safety and other requirements

by Krystal Vasquez
May 22, 2025

 

Credit: Shutterstock
The US Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to give laboratories 18 more months to comply with its methylene chloride rule. Methylene chloride is a popular solvent and is also used as a lubricant or degreaser in the automotive industry.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on May 20 proposed to extend the deadline for laboratories to comply with its methylene chloride rule by 18 months. The rule, finalized in May 2024, bans nearly all uses of methylene chloride, a popular solvent that has been linked to adverse health effects and 85 workplace and consumer deaths.

The regulation carves out an exception for the solvent’s use as a laboratory chemical. But it requires all nonfederal labs still using the compound to implement strict workplace safety measures between May and October of this year. The first deadline, which passed on May 5, requires labs to measure workers’ initial exposure levels.

Under the May 20 proposal, labs would instead need to implement these requirements between November 2026 and May 2027.

Shortly after the initial rule was finalized, several lab safety professionals told C&EN that the short timeline could pose considerable challenges, particularly to smaller institutions with fewer resources. In its announcement of the possible extension, the EPA says it heard similar concerns from labs associated with universities and local governments.

“EPA’s proposal would avoid disrupting important environmental monitoring and associated activities, while these non-federal labs work to comply with the rule’s new requirements,” the agency says.

According to the EPA, the current compliance deadlines will remain in effect until the proposal is finalized, but enforcing them will be a low priority for the agency.

For Kristi Ohr, assistant director of academic safety at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the possible extension doesn’t make much of a difference for her institution, which “have had full provisions of the program implemented for some time now.”

Meanwhile, Laura Dwyer, the chemistry lab coordinator at the University of Mount Union, says that the news comes as a welcome surprise to the main research lab that uses methylene chloride on her campus. The researchers now have more time to figure out if they’ll need to implement additional exposure controls for experiments that use larger amounts of the solvent, Dwyer says.

Ohr and Dwyer both say they’re glad to see the EPA responding to the feedback it has received from labs.

As part of the proposal, the agency is also planning to review additional information about the costs of exposure monitoring and other barriers to compliance. The EPA will be accepting comments for 30 days after the proposal is published in the Federal Register.

The extension announcement comes as the EPA battles two petitions asking courts to review the methylene chloride rule—one brought forth by two Texas-based paint companies and the other by the Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group. The two petitions have since been consolidated by the court, with oral arguments scheduled for June 3.

In a court document filed last week, the EPA said it will defend some parts of the regulation, but “will no longer defend the position on the single risk determination and personal protective equipment issues.”

The former refers to a decision made during the Joe Biden administration that chose to weigh the risk of a compound across multiple uses instead of making individual risk determinations for each use of a chemical. The latter refers to the EPA’s approach to base the risk determination of methylene chloride on what the exposure levels would be if users were to wear no personal protective equipment.

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