The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is moving swiftly to propose how it will prioritize and evaluate chemicals as the processes must be in place before June 22. “After 40 years, we can finally address chemicals currently in the marketplace,” said Jim Jones, assistant administrator at the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. The action that set the process into motion last week will now provide the EPA with tools to evaluate chemicals and to require companies to generate and provide data on the chemicals they produce. The EPA will propose three rules to administer the new process: the inventory rule which requires manufacturers to provide listings of chemicals still produced; the prioritization rule which establishes a risk-based screening process to determine whether chemicals are high or low priority for evaluation; and the risk evaluation rule, which will help the EPA identify hazards and exposures.
