EPA begins process to regulate toxic, widely used chemicals

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday released a list of toxic chemicals that will be the first reviewed under a recently enacted law that gives regulators increased authority to ban substances shown to endanger human health. Over the next three years EPA will study whether the listed chemicals present an “unreasonable risk to humans and the environment.” The agency will then have another two years to mitigate that risk through new regulations, which could include banning the chemicals from use in the United States. “Under the new law, we now have the power to require safety reviews of all chemicals in the marketplace,” said Jim Jones, assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. Earlier this year, CEI issued an opinion article criticizing the expansion of EPA’s authority to regulate toxic chemicals and questioning the need for an asbestos ban. “Today’s historic action by the EPA will finally begin the process of restricting the remaining sources of asbestos, which is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans,” said Sonya Lunder of the Environmental Working Group Action Fund, which studies toxic substances.