EPA’s decision to craft regulations for six chemicals used to make plastics targets workplace and environmental risks, skirting dangers to the general public.
The agency on the final day of 2025 finalized its cumulative reviewthat determined five phthalates — BBP, DBP, DCHP, DEHP and DIBP, all commonly used to make plastics, like polyvinyl chloride, more flexible — pose “unreasonable risks,” triggering the rulemaking process.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a post on X the announcement was a “massive MAHA win,” referring to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement, which has singled out phthalates as a family of chemicals potentially contributing to childhood chronic disease.
“MAHA activists were right, and the Trump EPA strongly agrees, that exposures in certain settings exceed safe levels and could cause endocrine disruption and reproductive health impacts,” Zeldin wrote.
