Herb Estreicher, David Fischer, and Lauren Gates Quoted in Chemical Watch Article on 5th Circuit’s Landmark Ruling

Keller and Heckman Partners Herb Estreicher and David Fischer, plus Counsel Lauren Gates, were quoted in the Chemical Watch Insight article, “What does the Fifth Circuit’s landmark ruling vacating the US EPA’s methylene chloride rule mean for the TSCA programme?” The article examines the Fifth Circuit’s decision vacating the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) methylene chloride rule and its potential to disrupt the entire Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) chemicals program, forcing EPA to reconsider numerous risk evaluations, risk management rules, and its approach to defining “unreasonable risk.”

David called it “the most important TSCA decision on section 6 since 2016 and should have significant ripple effects.” He argued EPA should revisit “every risk evaluation and risk management rule finalised to date” and said the chances of TSCA reform this year are “essentially zero.”

Lauren said the ruling “calls into question every action EPA has taken over the last six years.” She added, “This ruling will help the agency have more legal support to rely on as the rule moves forward, and there is now more of an incentive for the agency to finalise it quickly,” and said stakeholders should “expect to see more record support and movement away from estimates driving risk determinations.”

Herb Estreicher said EPA should reconsider existing TSCA rules and pause enforcement during that process. He also argued the court validated industry-backed scientific positions, including that “cascading uncertainty factors lead to nonsensical results and that the absence of adverse findings in human studies is very significant even in the face of contrary animal data."

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