EPA Requests Nominations of Reviewers to Assist the TSCA Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals with Upcoming Reviews

(WASHINGTON, October 27, 2021) - EPA is calling for nominations of ad hoc expert reviewers to assist the Toxic Substances Control Act Science (TSCA) Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC) with two peer review topics anticipated for early 2022.

EPA plans to release the following draft documents for public comment in the coming months and have them peer reviewed by the SACC in early 2022.

• Draft TSCA Systematic Review Protocol – following recommendations from a peer review conducted by the National Academies of Science (NAS), EPA announced its plan to develop a new TSCA systematic review protocol. This protocol will address the NAS recommendations and previous recommendations on systematic review from the SACC review of the first 10 TSCA risk evaluations. This review and public comment will ensure sound science is the basis for all TSCA chemical risk evaluations.
• Draft TSCA Screening Level Approach for Assessing Ambient Air and Water Exposures to Fenceline Communities – as part of EPA’s path forward on the first 10 TSCA chemical risk evaluations, the agency is exploring whether the previous Administration’s decision to exclude certain exposure pathways from the risk evaluations will lead to a failure to identify and protect fenceline communities. To determine if six of the 10 chemicals do present unreasonable risks to these communities, EPA is developing a screening-level approach to conduct ambient air and surface water fenceline assessments.

Any interested person or organization may nominate qualified individuals to be considered as prospective candidates. Nominations should be provided to the Designated Federal Official (DFO) identified below on or before November 17, 2021.

The SACC serves as a primary scientific peer review mechanism of EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention and is structured to provide scientific advice, information, and recommendations to the EPA Administrator on the scientific basis for risk assessments, methodologies, and pollution prevention measures and approaches for chemicals regulated under TSCA.

Additional information, including the requested expertise of nominees, may be found in the Federal Register Notice, on EPA’s SACC webpage, or by contacting the DFOs: Dr. Todd Peterson ([email protected]) and Dr. Alaa Kamel ([email protected]).