D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals judges appeared sympathetic to industry’s complaints that an EPA rule creates vulnerabilities for chemicals granted special protections as trade secrets.
The agency’s finalized updates to confidential business information, or CBI, requirements under the Toxic Substances Control Act say EPA may publish data submitted to the agency on all chemicals, unless the submission shows the chemical is protected under CBI.
The American Chemistry Council’s chief concern is that EPA doesn’t address a scenario in which confidential information is published because a downstream user submitted data with no knowledge of its protected CBI status.
That chemical “is no longer entitled to confidential treatment and may be published on the public portion of the TSCA Inventory” if a submitter does not assert CBI status, the agency’s final rule says.
