Herb Estreicher Quoted in the Inside TSCA Article, “Little-Used TSCA Data-Gathering Power Could Boost EPA Asbestos Review”

Keller and Heckman Partner Herb Estreicher was quoted in the Inside TSCA article, “Little-Used TSCA Data-Gathering Power Could Boost EPA Asbestos Review.” The article discusses how industry attorneys are predicting that the Environmental Protection Agency under the Biden administration will respond to last month’s landmark court ruling ordering the agency to require companies to report uses or imports of asbestos by invoking a little-used TSCA authority to gather data on asbestos and possibly a host of other high-priority chemicals.

Herb said that since EPA is under a court order to amend its Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) program quickly to include asbestos, he anticipates the new administration “will issue a [Preliminary Assessment Information Rule (PAIR)] specific to asbestos to call in the type of information that the court required EPA to call in.” EPA last issued a PAIR in 2017 on nanoscale materials. Herb said he expects the Biden EPA to issue such rules more often than its predecessors.

“I think EPA, when they do a scoping document and they feel that there’s insufficient information, I really do expect to see from this new administration PAIR rules,” Herb said. “I expect in the next CDR reporting cycle, 2024, you will see additional requirements for those chemicals that are on EPA’s proposed list for risk evaluation and there may well be for all chemicals on” the Obama EPA’s 2014 TSCA work plan list of chemicals, which are included as priorities for action in reformed TSCA.

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