The United States Chamber of Commerce (“Chamber”) is pleased to write in response to the request for comment regarding recently finalized rules regulating persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) chemicals under Section 6(h) of the Toxic Substances and Control Act (TSCA). These comments pertain to the articles and products subject to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA”) Final PBT Rules, and, in particular, EPA’s Final Rule, “Phenol, Isopropylated Phosphate (3:1) (PIP (3:1); Regulation of Persistent, Bioaccumulative, and Toxic Chemicals Under TSCA Section 6(h)” (“Final PIP (3:1) Rule”), 86 Fed. Reg. 894 (Jan. 6, 2021).
We sincerely appreciate the EPA’s March 8 “No Action Assurance” regarding enforcement discretion of certain compliance deadlines for PIP (3:1), and the agency’s concurrent opening of a comment period to seek additional feedback on potential impacts that the Final PBT Rules. Industry stakeholders are undertaking robust, good faith efforts to comply with these rulemakings, but need additional time to appropriately identify these components as many of these components and articles that contain PIP (3:1) are fully enclosed within supply chains. To be clear, the Chamber does not dispute EPA’s statutory mandate to reduce exposures to PBT chemicals to the extent practicable; our concern is ensuring adequate compliance timelines and appropriate scoping to focus restrictions on the conditions of use that lead to meaningful exposure reductions. We believe reconsideration of these factors are more than reasonable, particularly considering the fact that the agency did not undertake an effort to make specific risk findings or determinations associated with these chemicals.
