EPA Discloses 150 Trade Secret Chemicals
June 13, 2011
Last week, EPA removed confidentiality protection for more than 150 chemicals, further pursuing a culture of material disclosure in manufacturing in terms of chemicals, mixtures and compounds. EPA calls it "transparency."
EPA's increasingly opening the kimono regarding chemical ingredients. This declassification trend towards substance-level material disclosure is similar to the culture being created under Europe's REACH and RoHS.
The chemicals involved are used in:
- dispersant formulations
- consumer products (such as air fresheners)
- non-stick and stain resistant materials
- fire resistant materials
- nonylphenol compounds
- perfluorinated compounds
- lead
Regarding impetus for the disclosure, EPA cites the protection of Americans’ health via increased access to chemical information. To date, EPA has made over 150 chemicals public; these chemicals had been both:
- previously claimed confidential by industry
- the subject of ~104 health and safety studies
“A health and safety study with the chemical name kept secret is completely useless to the public,” pointed out Steve Owens, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.
In 2010, EPA challenged industry to voluntarily declassify unwarranted claims of confidential business information (CBI). The agency also issued new guidance outlining plans to deny confidentiality claims for chemical identity in health and safety studies under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Based on this guidance, EPA notified a number of companies in February 2011 that the agency had determined that their CBI claim was not eligible for confidential treatment under TSCA and that EPA intended to make the information public.
The health and safety studies include some declassified by the agency and other voluntary declassifications by companies in response to EPA’s challenge. EPA is committed to posting new declassified materials under TSCA on the agency website on a regular basis.
Chemical disclosure trends
EPA is on a chemical ingredient disclosure bender. Over the past several months, EPA made a lot more chemical information readily available. For the first time, for instance, the agency has provided free public access to the consolidated TSCA Inventory on the EPA and Data.Gov websites.
EPA also recently launched a new chemical data access tool that gives the public the ability to electronically search EPA’s database of more than 10,000 health and safety documents on a wide range of chemicals that they may come in contact with every day.
Expect these initiatives towards consolidation and transparency to continue. "The era of what is called 'cowboy chemical management' is over," said Chris Nowak, Director at Actio. 'Businesses are wise to set up chemical disclosure systems, with audit trails, to place themselves ahead of the impending reality of government agencies doing it for them."
More information from EPA: http://www.epa.gov/oppt/existingchemicals/pubs/transparency.html
Industry reaction
Industry and EPA actually agree to some extent that perhaps companies have overused need-for-confidentiality assertions to protect chemical identity and formulas. Yet, the chemical industry stresses that some protection is needed to protect trade secrets. The argument goes that companies must have valid and reasonable trade secrets in order to compete in a free market.
“It's important that EPA continue to recognize legitimate claims to safeguard intellectual property from competitors,” said Scott Jensen, a spokesman for the American Chemistry Council (ACC).
(image: Chinatown, San Francisco, 2011 by kmhurley)
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