EPA Further Delays Requirements for Industrial Uses of TCE
The effective date for certain requirements of EPA’s risk management rule for the solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) is again delayed, the agency announced in June. EPA’s action postpones the Toxic Substances Control Act section 6(g) exemptions in the rule for an additional 60 days, until Aug. 19, 2025. Under the final rule, most uses of TCE, including its manufacture and processing for all consumer and most commercial products, will be prohibited within one year. But the TSCA section 6(g) exemptions permit several industrial uses to continue for longer periods under certain restrictions, including a workplace chemical protection program and controls intended to limit occupational exposure to TCE. For example, one exemption for TCE is its use as a processing aid for specialty polymeric microporous sheet material manufacturing.
The workplace conditions required by the TSCA section 6(g) exemptions for TCE are the subject of ongoing legal challenges to the rule. EPA received several petitions for review of the TCE final rule in various circuits of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, including from battery-separator manufacturers arguing that “the interim workplace conditions are impracticable and function as a total ban.”
“[P]etitioners allege that because the interim workplace conditions would require petitioners to reduce TCE exposure levels to the [interim exposure level] of 0.2 ppm, the final rule effectively requires the use of personal protective equipment that cannot feasibly be worn all day, and therefore could cause petitioners to cease operations,” EPA explained in an earlier Federal Register notice.
While this litigation is pending, EPA’s latest postponement is intended to “temporarily preserve the status quo,” according to last month’s Federal Register notice addressing TCE.
The notice from June also indicates that EPA “intends to reconsider the final rule … through notice-and-comment rulemaking.” A document from the court case (PDF) further clarifies that the agency intends to revisit the rule’s exposure limit for uses of TCE permitted under TSCA section 6(g) exemptions. The inhalation exposure limit of 0.2 ppm as an eight-hour time-weighted average was set as part of EPA’s workplace chemical protection program for TCE.
For more information, see EPA’s recent update on the status of the TCE rule. The notice in the Federal Register provides additional context for the agency’s actions.
