The UCSF Program on Reproductive Health issued the following statement today.
Instead of strengthening health protections and using best available science under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), EPA’s proposed framework rule weakens them by stripping away requirements that ensure TSCA risk evaluations reflect real-world chemical exposures and risks.
It removes requirements for EPA to consider all relevant chemical uses, exposure pathways, and combinations of exposures, and it eliminates provisions that ensured protection for workers when personal protective equipment (PPE) is inadequate or improperly used. It also strikes “overburdened communities” from the definition of “potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulations” and returns EPA to making risk determinations for individual uses of a chemical, rather than evaluating the chemical as a whole, collectively undermining the Agency’s ability to adequately regulate harmful exposures, especially for groups facing disproportionate harm.
Also of great concern, the rule would allow EPA to revise finalized risk evaluations without public notice, comment, or oversight, removing transparency and accountability from decisions that directly affect public health.
