Legal Blog

The California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) is seeking to add spray polyurethane foam systems containing unreacted methylene diphenyl diisocyanates (MDIs) to its list of Priority Products under the Safer Consumer Products Program. The comment period is open until May 16, 2017 and the submission form may be found here. Safer Consumer Products Program The Safer Consumer Products Regulations were promulgated in 2013 to establish a process to identify, prioritize, and evaluate substitutes for hazardous chemicals in consumer products. An informational list of these chemicals, termed “Candidate Chemicals” in the Safer Consumer Products Program and which are those deemed…

A San Francisco Bay Area company, AK Scientific, has been indicted on a number of criminal charges, including -- in a rare case of criminal enforcement -- violations of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). With respect to the TSCA charges, AK Scientific allegedly failed to submit Section 12(b) export notifications and Section 13 import certifications for a substance regulated under a Significant New Use Rule (SNUR), and also allegedly failed to comply with the SNUR requirements. According to the United States Attorney's Office press release, the particular SNUR allegedly at issue is found at 40 CFR Section § 721.4880.…

The California Senate has introduced SB 258, the Cleaning Product Right To Know Act of 2017, which would require manufacturers to list all ingredients on cleaning products sold within the state. This follows last year's failure of a similar bill, AB 708. The requirements of SB 258 would apply to any product manufactured or sold within the state after January 1st, 2018. SB 258, which was introduced by Senator Ricardo Lara, is currently under review by the rules committee. Requirements under SB259 The Cleaning Product Right to Know Act of 2017 establishes several requirements, which are summarized below. Each physical product…

On February 21, 2017, EPA announced that implementation of its January 19, 2017 interpretation of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) requirements for confidential business information (CBI) substantiation was delayed pursuant to White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus's memorandum freezing all new and pending regulations. EPA's announcement also stated that "EPA may consider delaying the effective date of this action beyond March 21, 2017." Although EPA's implementation is delayed by only one day, to March 21, 2017 from the original implementation date of March 20, 2017, EPA's acknowledgement that the interpretation is subject to the memorandum at all, and…

Beginning July 1, 2017, the State of Washington shall prohibit the sale and distribution of children’s products and residential upholstered furniture containing more than 1000 parts per million (ppm) of any of the following flame retardants in any product component: • Tris(1,3-dichloroisopropyl) phosphate (TDCPP) (CAS Registration Number 13674-87-8); • Tris(2-chloroethyl) phosphate (TCEP) (CAS Registration Number 115-96-8); • Decabromodiphenyl ether (CAS Registration Number 1163-19-5); • Hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) (CAS Registration Number 25637-99-4); and • The additive tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA) (CAS Registration Number 79-94-7). The restriction is part of the Children’s Safe Products Act (CSPA), Revised Code of Washington (RCW) Chapter 70.240, first…