EPA Overhauls Public Website for Tracking Chemical Safety Review

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) website appears to no longer publish preliminary assessments of potentially hazardous new chemicals, thereby not allowing the public to access information on any initial concerns that the agency may have regarding new chemicals or novel uses for existing chemicals. EPA’s chemical review tracking website was updated on January 5, 2018 with the interim status for more than 120 reviews initiated since September 2017 now showing up as “focus meeting occurred”, indicating only that the staff has had preliminary discussions. Under the Obama administration, EPA would designate an interim status to new chemicals, such as “not likely to present an unreasonable risk” to health or the environment; under “standard review”; unable to be reviewed because of “insufficient information”; or possibly presenting “unreasonable risk of injury”. A final verdict would be delivered after review by the agency within 90 days of receiving relevant documentation from companies. Under the Trump administration, EPA has decided to cut back public access to information about chemical safety. According to a presentation published on the EPA website in December 2017, the agency believed that “previous terminology used for interim statutes created confusion,” and decided to stop updating the online database that was used by the public to track the status of chemical reviews. Jahan ...
Source: Public Policy Reports - Category: Biology Authors: Source Type: news