Test rules voluntary testing agreements

Section 4 The US EPA may require manufacturers, importers, and processors to test chemicals when risks or exposures of concern are identified. This requires a formal rule making alternatively, the US EPA has worked with industry to develop data through Enforceable Consent Agreements (ECAs) and Voluntary Testing Agreements (VTAs) [20]. 

As a practical matter, the EPA takes a very long time to promulgate a test rule. For example, the EPA issued a test rule covering 34 chemicals that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was concerned about because of skin absorption. That rule was effective May 26, 2004. However, OSHA had first sent a list of chemicals to the ITC in 1991, with a request that the ITC review the data available concerning skin absorption. The ITC first designated 84 of those chemicals in 1993. The EPA issued PAIR and TSCA 8(d) rules in 1993, 1994, and 1995, and subsequently entered into a voluntary enforceable consent agreement for testing one chemical. EPA proposed the test rule in 1999 and finalized it five years later. 

The Court catalogued the other TSCA provisions that are triggered by the issuance of a test rule, and found that these would not be triggered by a voluntary agreement. Chief among them are ... 

---