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Press Room
VI Issues Statement on EPA’s Announcement of TSCA Priority Substances List
March 21, 2019
VI President and CEO, Ned Monroe, provided the following statement regarding EPA’s recent announcement of its priority substances list for its TSCA prioritization process:
“This week U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its list of priority substances for its TSCA prioritization process. The agency is required to prioritize 20 high and 20 low priority substances and initiate risk assessments for 20 high-priority substances by December 22, 2019, as mandated by the Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act. The Vinyl Institute supported this bipartisan legislation.
Ethylene Dichloride (EDC) is included in this round of substances.
EDC is a reasonable choice for review, as it is already highly regulated, widely studied and has a low potential for public exposure. The Vinyl Institute is prepared to constructively work with the EPA to provide data from the industry.
EDC is used primarily as a building block for the production of vinyl chloride monomer and other intermediate chemicals. Regulatory controls imposed decades ago on EDC under the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Occupational Safety and Health Act have resulted in low emissions from manufacturing facilities and a very low potential for exposure to the substance.
Since 1987, U.S. ambient emissions of EDC to air and water as reported in EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory have declined by 90% as a result of control equipment installed by manufacturers. The low potential for exposure to EDC for the general public is demonstrated by the biomonitoring data collected by Center for Disease Control under the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) program which did not detect the substance in blood collected from individuals over two consecutive sampling cycles. The Vinyl Institute will be providing EPA with up-to-date information on production, uses, and exposure for its prioritization determination.”
You can find the full list of priority substances here.