EPA Announces First Mandated Adjustment for TSCA Fees

(WASHINGTON, November 23, 2021) - Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing legally mandated changes to the fee requirements under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). TSCA directs EPA to adjust the fees every three years. Accordingly, an adjustment will go into effect on January 1, 2022, and will apply to all TSCA fees. Separate from today’s action, in 2022, EPA plans to propose additional revisions to the 2018 TSCA fees rule to supplement the agency’s proposal from January 11, 2021 to ensure that TSCA fee amounts capture up to 25% of the actual costs of TSCA activities, fees are distributed equitably, and fee payers are identified through a transparent process.

The TSCA program has been and remains seriously underfunded. The 2016 amendments to TSCA provided EPA with expanded authority to collect fees from chemical manufacturers and processors to help defray up to 25% of the costs associated with eight categories of TSCA implementation activities, including risk evaluations, new chemical notices, test rules, consent agreements, and test orders, as well as the cost of reviewing and managing confidential business information. The first TSCA fees rule was not finalized until late 2018 (and thus did not lead to any collected fees until fiscal year 2019) and excluded 100% of the costs of the first ten risk evaluations. As a result of this and other factors, TSCA fees collected since the 2016 amendments have covered only half of the 25% target. Additionally, the agency estimates it has less than half of the resources needed to review and approve new chemicals in the manner Congress intended and observes that the statutory deadlines for completing nine of the first 10 risk evaluations were missed.

Ensuring sufficient resources is essential to fulfilling all aspects of TSCA implementation. For example, the agency estimates it has less than half of the resources needed to review and approve new chemicals in the manner Congress intended. Adjusting these fees is an important step towards ensuring the TSCA program has the resources it needs to implement the new requirements of the law in a way that’s both protective and sustainable.

TSCA directs EPA to adjust fees every three years. Consistent with its regulations, EPA determined the adjustment for TSCA fees by multiplying the fees by the Producer Price Index for Chemicals and Allied Products inflation value with the base year of 2019. The fee adjustment will not be retroactive and will not impact previous fee invoicing.

Learn more about adjusted fees for the administration of TSCA.