Life Cycle Thinking Blog

EPA declassified confidentiality claims in a batch of 42 health and safety studies (mostly 8(e) notices of substantial risk) March 24, 2011, following through on their promise of transparency.
Certainly there are some old claims out there that are no longer valid (many on what was at the time R&D activity that has either gone commercial or died). And some claims were pretty bogus to begin with. But the idea of going back and having to re-substantiate the thousands of claims that have been made over the last 35 years – holy cow! Believe it or not, some of the claims will still be valid (just like the secret ingredients of Coke).

Nice summary of whether there is really anything behind the surveys on all the consumer demand for “green” products by Joel Makower http://bit.ly/eYG9Ef Essentially, he says that consumers say they want green, don’t really know what “green” (or “sustainable”) means and won’t pay more because they either don’t trust companies and/or are buying on price and performance. Except for a few diehards who are true believers and/or want everyone to view them as green (a status thing).

Proposed bills to reform TSCA have argued to put the burden on chemical manufacturers to prove that there is “reasonable certainty that the substances pose no harm.”
But what does this mean, particularly in light of recent EPA positions on dioxin risk and endocrine disruptor tiered screening? [Covered in Feb 23, 2011, InsideEPA.com’s Toxics Regulation News]

EPA announced it has rejected confidentiality claims for chemical identity of 14 chemicals in health and safety studies under TSCA. The agency is narrowly interpreting TSCA to only allow limited claims of confidential business information (CBI) especially for chemical identity in studies. It remains to be seen if companies can justify some of their claims.

USDA has published its final rule on a voluntary product certification and labeling program for “biopreferred products” – bio-based materials containing products (like NatureWorks corn-based polylactic acid polymers). See rule and guidance here. The program is set for launch Feb 21, 2011.