House Subcommittee Aims to Correct EPA’s “Flawed Decision-Making Process” on Chemical Assessments

Highlights:

• The U.S. House Energy & Commerce Environment Subcommittee examined the EPA’s overreach under the Lautenberg Act, highlighting how its mismanagement of TSCA has stifled innovation, endangered supply chains, and given foreign adversaries like China a competitive edge.
• Witnesses criticized the EPA’s flawed risk assessments and unrealistic modeling assumptions, such as disregarding industry safety practices and personal protective equipment usage, which threaten critical industries and consumer goods.
• The EPA’s regulatory missteps, like nearly banning trichloroethylene (TCE), risked disrupting half of the U.S. gasoline supply, underscoring the urgent need for more balanced and informed chemical regulation.

The U.S. House Energy & Commerce Environment Subcommittee held their first hearing of the year earlier this week, which sought to address the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) authority under the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21^st Century Act (Lautenberg Act) as it relates to chemical assessments required under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

The Biden EPA, under a broad and overreaching interpretation of “unreasonable risk,” used TSCA to propose rules on chemicals currently in use in the United States. Unelected bureaucrats sought to massively expand government’s ability to effectively ban the safe production and use of chemicals needed to grow our economy and power our future.

Lawmakers were quick to point out some of the ways the EPA has stifled innovation and our economy all while our foreign adversaries, namely China, stand to benefit. Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-KY) highlighted the EPA’s “flawed decision-making process,” which has “inhibited American innovation and our ability to compete in the global market.” Subcommittee Vice Chairman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) said that “the prior administration poorly implemented chemical regulations under the Toxic Substances Control Act,” putting the industry’s viability at risk, and threatening “critical supply chains for the products that we all know and rely upon every single day.”

One of the witnesses invited to testify, Geoff Moody, Senior Vice President of Government Relations & Policy for the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), said that the EPA under the Biden administration largely regulated existing chemicals “in a vacuum, disregarding other agencies overlapping regulations, industry-wide safety practices, and real-world data.” Moody said the “EPA’s modeling assumes our industry does not use personal protective equipment when handling chemicals at our facilities,” which does not happen. Under the Biden administration, the EPA also failed to properly assess chemicals primarily or only used in closed-loop systems consumed during the manufacturing process, known as intermediates. In instances like these, the general public is not at any risk of getting into contact with these inputs.

Moody highlighted the example of trichloroethylene (TCE), which is an impurity as part of a closed-loop refining catalyst process. Had the EPA banned TCE without exemptions, half of the country’s gasoline supply would have been put at risk, a fact Pinpoint raised back in September. Fortunately, AFPM was able to engage with the EPA to halt a scenario like that from occurring. But it shouldn’t take mountains of effort from American industry to stop the EPA from crushing our supply of fuel.

As Vice Chairman Crenshaw noted, chemicals play an “indispensable role” in our lives, “creating everything from life-saving medical devices to computers and smartphones and cutting-edge military platforms.” The subcommittee’s attention into this matter is an encouraging step to ensure the vital domestic chemical industry can continue to harness our country’s competitive advantage and ability to innovate.