On June 22, 2017, the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) issued its rule outlining the process by which it will conduct risk evaluations on chemical substances under the amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), to determine whether the substances present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment under the conditions of use. The rule was published in the Federal Register on July 20, 2017.
The rule identifies the steps in US EPA’s risk evaluation process, including the scope of the risk evaluation, hazard assessment, exposure assessment, risk characterization and risk determination. US EPA will use this process for (1) the first 10 chemical substances that it selected for risk evaluation from its Work Plan chemicals list last November (as required by the amended TSCA); (2) substances designated as high-priority substances during the prioritization process; and (3) substances for which US EPA initiates a risk evaluation in response to manufacturer requests.
