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EPA Explores Adding PFAS to Toxics Release Inventory

November 27, 2019 | Environmental, Environmental News

Following the PFAS Action Plan announced in February this year, on Nov. 25 the Environmental Protection Agency released the prepublication version of its Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM). The proposal is to potentially add certain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). The TRI, lists chemicals that certain companies are required to annually report to the agency, in order to track their use and management.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler noted that the PFAS Action Plan is “the most comprehensive cross-agency plan to address an emerging chemical ever taken by EPA,” and that adding PFAS chemicals to the TRI program would “provide important information to the public on these chemicals for the first time.”

Public comments on the ANPRM will be due 60 days following its publication in the Federal Register. The request for public input to the ANPRM has a dual purpose: to help the agency determine whether available information on certain PFAS would fulfill the TRI chemical listing criteria, and to help evaluate if the data gathered under TRI would be useful and beneficial to the public.

If the agency then moves forward with this initiative, a proposed rule will be published and open for public comments before being promulgated.

Barnes & Thornburg environmental attorneys continue to actively monitor these developments as well as significant state and private sector actions around PFAS.

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