Performance Chemistries Weekly Roundup – 2.11.21
FTI Consulting’s Performance Chemistries Working Group actively tracks developments on performance chemistries related to regulation, litigation, and corporate reputation. Currently, our focus is on high-interest chemicals, including: ethylene oxide (EtO); 1,4-dioxane; phthalates; trichloroethylene (TCE); perchloroethylene (PERC); per- and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS); and formaldehyde.
Phthalates
- In a study on the presence of microplastics in fish meal, which is feed used for farmed fish, researchers cautioned that “plastic additives and contaminants like phthalates, DDT and bisphenol A” could potentially “leach into the fish’s organs,” according to E&E News.
Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS):
- According to E&E News, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved Michael Regan’s nomination to serve as the next EPA administrator by a bipartisan 14-6 margin, with four Republican Senators voting in his support. Ranking Member Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) characterized Regan as “the type of person I would like to see leading a federal agency,” despite voting against his nomination, stating “We cannot return to a third term of the Obama administration policies at the EPA that will lead to job loss, economic harm and more permanent scarring.”
- In an interview with E&E News, Ro Khanna (D-CA), who will serve as the Chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Environment during the 117th Congress, expressed plans to “scrutinize” the private sector over PFAS use this coming year, stating “We are going to be scrutinizing the roles they [the private sector] may have had, including in residential neighborhoods in causing cancer, on PFAS, clean water and clean air. That will definitely be part of our efforts.”
- According to InsideEPA, E&E News, Bloomberg Law, and The Hill, the EPA announced on February 9 that it is withdrawing the Trump administration’s toxicity assessment for PFBS pending further action, after the initial assessment was released on January 19. The EPA’s release on the withdrawal states that the original assessment was “compromised by political interference as well as infringement of authorship and the scientific independence of the authors’ conclusions.”
- During a panel last week, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) launched a project aimed at advising federal health agencies on PFAS and patient care, according to E&E News. The committee aims to provide “an objective and authoritative review” of research around the alleged human health impacts linked to PFAS exposure. During the panel’s public comment period, some community members spoke to the need for streamlining advice to health professionals, with the co-founder of the group Testing for Pease saying, “Impacted communities currently have no clear guidance on how to work with their doctors…when it comes to PFAS, patients are more knowledgeable.”
Formaldehyde:
- According to Inside EPA, a newly created National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committee is preparing to review the operating handbook for EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program. The committee’s first meeting, happening today, follows EPA’s November release of the IRIS handbook for public comment and peer review, after “almost a decade” of internal development and reviews, with comments due by March 1. The article notes that NAS’ input could be especially important to the Biden EPA’s IRIS agenda since the handbook was written in response to recommendations issued in 2011 by a separate panel as part of its “critical” review of the then-draft assessment for formaldehyde.
