Today the EPA released its long-awaited “problem formulation” documents for the first ten chemicals under review as required by the 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families’ Acting Director Liz Hitchcock issued the following statement in response:
“We are profoundly disappointed that the asbestos problem formulation released today by the EPA indicates that the agency will not consider legacy uses of asbestos in its risk evaluation of this deadly chemical.
With an estimated 15,000 Americans dying each year from diseases associated with asbestos exposure, it’s past time for the EPA to finish the job of protecting human health from this notoriously deadly fiber. If the fatal flaw of ‘old TSCA’ was that the EPA could not use it to ban asbestos, the fatal flaw of the Pruitt EPA is that they will not use reformed TSCA to protect us from asbestos.”
BACKGROUND:
Safer Chemicals’ comments to the EPA on the scope of its TSCA risk evaluation for asbestos