Australia IMAP Lists 3000 "Stage One" Chemicals for Assessment

The Australian chemicals agency, which goes by NICNAS, has announced that it will implement its new Inventory Multi-tiered Assessment and Prioritisation (IMAP) framework "in a staged manner." Beginning July 2012, "NICNAS will begin assessing around 3,000 existing chemicals," which are now designated “Stage One chemicals.”

The characteristics used to identify "stage one" chemicals are listed in the table on the NICNAS site and include a) chemicals for which NICNAS holds exposure data, b) chemicals identified as
a concern or for which action has been taken overseas, and c) chemicals detected in international studies analysing chemicals present in the blood in babies’ umbilical cords.

NICNAS has set up an online searchable database for anyone wishing to find out which chemicals are included in Stage One.

Factsheets on the program can be found here.

EPA Will Identify Priority Chemicals by Thanksgiving (or so)

EPA will identify chemicals to be prioritized sometime this fall as it tries to move forward under the old TSCA as Congress makes no progress on developing a new TSCA.  To do so EPA will take into consideration feedback they received from a variety of stakeholders in two recent outreach attempts related to their proposed prioritization process. 

EPA introduced its proposed prioritization scheme and "discussion guide" back in August.  They then had a webinar on September 7th to give an overview of the proposed scheme and to invite feedback.  Finally, EPA also invited the public to share their thoughts in an online discussion forum.  That discussion forum closed on September 14th.


All comments received from stakeholders are now being assimilated and reviewed by EPA staff, who are working to identify chemicals to be prioritized for review.  In general the feedback was very constructive and included both concerns for the data sources being proposed as well as suggestions for other data sources to include in the evaluation. Other stakeholders cautioned that the use of production volume as a surrogate for exposure could lead to chemicals with very low risk being prioritized while chemicals of low production volume by high exposure potential, and thus risk, might be left out.  Some stakeholders suggested the addition of additional health effects such as endocrine disruption, neurotoxicity and skin or respiratory sensitization be used early in the prioritization process, while others cautioned that the process could get bogged down in the minutia if too many factors were included in the first step.

More information on the EPA chemical prioritization can be found on the discussion forum web site and EPA's existing chemicals "Identifying priority chemicals for review" page.

EPA to Discuss TSCA Chemical Prioritization Process in Upcoming Webinar - Invites Comments

The USEPA is reevaluating and seeks to enhance their current chemicals management program as authorized under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  As part of this reevaluation EPA has scheduled a webinar on the prioritization factors and data sources the Agency plans to use to identify priority substances.  EPA is also inviting the public to share their thoughts in an online discussion forum.


The discussion forum seeks comments on two steps in the process.  The first step is prioritization and is split into two substeps - the priority factors to be used to identify substances of high priority, and the sources of data for those factors.  The second step is to look at additional factors and sources for further analysis beyond the prioritization step.

More information and links to the discussion forum for each of the steps can be found on the
EPA discussion forum site.  All comments will be reviewed by the EPA, though since this is not a formal rule-making EPA will not respond directly to each comment.  The online forum is now open and will remain open through 5:00 pm EDT on September 14, 2011.

In conjunction, EPA is inviting participation in a webinar that will discuss the prioritization factors and data sources.  The webinar will be held on Wednesday, September 7, 2011 from 1:30 to 4:30 pm EDT.  Interested parties may register for the webinar here.

Prior to the webinar or submitting comments in the online discussion forum, all are encouraged to read EPA's background paper and discussion guide, which lays out the current thought process.  This can be downloaded as a PDF file here.

China Lists Hazardous Chemicals

China has now posted its first list of "hazardous chemicals for priority management" as party of their efforts to update their chemical health and safety management program.  This first list contains 60 chemicals and was released by SAWS, China's State Administration of Work Safety, in late June 2011.

The list can be viewed here in Chinese only.

Chemicals listed for priority management include common substances like benzene, methanol, chlorine, and ammonium hydroxide, as well as methyl hydrazine, acrylic acid, hexachloropentadiene, and methyl tert butyl ether (MTBE).  There are also some substances and mixtures that are listed based on their classification as flammable gases or liquids, pyrophoric liquids or solids, or substances that emit flammable gases when in contact with water.

For chemicals on the list, SAWS will engage in prioritized inspections of facilities that manufacture, store or use the chemicals.  Companies will also be required to prepare emergency response plans to deal with spills and accidents involving chemicals on the list.

Additional lists are expected in the future.

Priority Chemicals Listed by the Minnesota Department of Health - Toxic Free Kids Act

Under the Toxic Free Kids Act, the state of Minnesota Department of Health, in consultation with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, has listed a total of nine chemicals as "priority chemicals."  The statute, which passed in 2009 "required MDH to develop two lists of chemicals: Chemicals of High Concern and Priority Chemicals." The Chemicals of High Concern list was published on July 1, 2010 and be found on the Chemicals of High Concern page. 

The Priority Chemicals list can be found here.  The nine chemicals listed (click on the name for links to PDFs of summary information for each chemical) are:

Bisphenol A

Cadmium

Decabromodiphenyl Ether (DecaBDE)

Formaldehyde

Hexabromocyclododecane

Lead

And three phthalates:

Butyl benzyl phthalate (BBP)
Dibutyl phthalate (DBP)
Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP)

The Minnesota Department of Health has also provided a handy priority chemicals summary table here.

Additional information on the methodology employed to select priority chemicals, as well as a FAQ sheet, can be found on the MDH web site.