The revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) was enacted in June 2016. TSCA requires the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to finalize several “framework” rules by June 2017. Recently, EPA published three of these proposed “framework” rules to implement the new TSCA. The proposed rules provide the basis for prioritizing and evaluating chemicals under the revised chemicals law. The proposed rules also address the TSCA inventory reset, which requires manufacturers to notify EPA of chemicals manufactured, imported or processed in the past 10 years.

As an initial matter, companies should begin identifying all chemicals they have manufactured, imported or processed in the last 10 years to ensure they are included on the active TSCA inventory. While this task may be simplified for companies that are required to report under TSCA’s chemical data reporting requirements, this may involve more effort for other companies. Therefore, it is recommended that companies begin assembling this information now, even before the inventory reset rule is finalized. EPA is accepting comments on these proposed rules until March 14, 2017.