July 14, 2023
(press release)
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WASHINGTON (July 14, 2023) — Today, ACC’s High Phthalates Panel (the Panel) issued the following statement on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) adding a di-isononyl phthalate (DINP) category to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) reporting requirements under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) Section 313: The Panel strongly disagrees with EPA listing DINP on the TRI and does not believe EPA has met the legal standard or considered the new science as required to list DINP on the TRI. In detailed scientific comments, the Panel has explained why DINP should not be listed on the TRI and why the original proposed rule from 2000 to list DINP should have been withdrawn. “EPA’s TRI listing criteria suffers from significant technical deficiencies. As noted in the Panel’s comments to EPA, DINP does not meet the criteria for EPCRA Section 313 listing; that is, DINP is not known to cause and cannot reasonably be anticipated to cause cancer, birth defects, or serious or irreversible chronic health effects in humans. The precedent EPA is setting with the standard it applies for listing DINP may open the door for numerous additional chemicals to be added to TRI which should not be as the endpoints noted by EPA for its listing determination are caused by many substances that undergo high dose animal testing. Such listing would be inconsistent with the intent of the TRI program to focus on those chemicals that are of the highest level of concern. “As part of EPA’s rulemaking process, the Agency issued a Revised Technical Review of DINP in 2005, and the Panel submitted detailed comments to EPA for why DINP should not be listed on the TRI. In addition, the Australian National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme, the European Chemicals Agency, Environment and Climate Change Canada, and the National Academy of Sciences have conducted robust reviews of the hazard information on DINP, and the conclusions of these agencies are at odds with the EPA’s conclusions. Each of these agencies concluded that DINP is not a reproductive or developmental hazard and does not present a risk to human health and the environment. “In addition, the current Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) risk evaluation process will consider DINP exposure risks beyond the scope of the TRI. The pending TSCA Manufacturer-Requested Risk Evaluation (MRRE) of DINP, which was submitted by the Panel in December 2019, will assess risk posed to human health and the environment, including environmental releases as well as other, non-environmental sources of exposure. “Should the EPA MRRE of DINP determine that environmental releases of DINP pose no risk to human health and the environment, mandating annual reporting of DINP release from affected facilities becomes an unnecessary burden and further obviates any need for a TRI listing. “DINP is one of the most thoroughly studied compounds in the world. This phthalate has been reviewed by numerous international scientific panels for decades, and the conclusions are essentially the same each time: DINP, under normal use in commercial and consumer products, does not pose a risk to human health.”
“The goal of EPCRA Section 313 is to provide a means by which a community can estimate the potential for local risks with environmental exposures: the existing science does not support EPA’s conclusion to add a DINP category. Mandating annual reporting of environmental emissions for DINP, as required by a TRI listing, is misleading and does not provide additional public health benefits. EPA has stated that ‘under EPCRA Section 313, a lack of evidence cannot be used as basis for listing a chemical’ and thus it is inappropriate for EPA to add DINP to the TRI.
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