Deregulation Day: U.S. EPA Unveils Plans to Roll Back 31 Environmental Regulations

In what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is billing as the “greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced more than two dozen orders to scale back environmental regulations that target the nation’s protections on clean air and water pollution.

If implemented, the flurry of directives seeks to advance the executive orders President Donald Trump signed on his first day in office.

The agency has claimed that by reconsidering environmental and climate change regulations, it would “roll back trillions in regulatory costs” and make it more affordable for Americans to buy cars, heat homes, and operate businesses.

“Trump is taking a chainsaw to the EPA as a favor for corporate polluters, leaving everyone else to wonder what toxic pollution will be in the water we drink and the air we breathe,” said Michelle Roos, executive director at the Environmental Protection Network, which includes more than 600 former EPA career staff and confirmation-level appointees from Democratic and Republican administrations.

Major Implications for the Chemical Industry

While many of the EPA’s moves impact regulations aimed at weakening the nation’s environmental protections, Louise Bernstein, 3E’s managing director of Product Stewardship, said the actions signal major implications for the chemical industry. These impacts include changes to implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), safety data sheet (SDS) requirements, and coordination of enforcement between the EPA and the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

The rollbacks focus on several critical areas of TSCA implementation. The EPA plans to determine if the approach taken by the Biden administration to make a single risk determination for a chemical aligns with TSCA requirements. The agency will evaluate whether it must assess all conditions of use of a chemical simultaneously within the three-year timeframe generally prescribed by Congress. The EPA will reconsider how personal protective equipment (PPE) and industrial controls in occupational settings should be incorporated into risk evaluations and has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with OSHA to that end.