Michal Freedhoff took helm as President Joe Biden’s pick to lead EPA’s chemicals office with a clear mission: to reenergize the burnt-out staff working in a demanding, resource-depleted program and redo the former administration’s actions, all while striking balance between strongly protective measures that keep industry complaints at a minimum.
Environmentalists and industry groups, Democrats and Republicans believed she was the best fit for the job. After all, Freedhoff was one of the Democratic staffers who helped write the 2016 amendments that majorly revamped the Toxic Substances Control Act.
As assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, Freedhoff oversaw implementation of both the chemical safety law and pesticides law — the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act.
Under her watch, the office finalized historic restrictions on some of the most notorious substances, including a full ban on the only type of asbestos still used in the U.S.; set stringent reporting rules on “forever chemicals,” or PFAS; and rewrote major TSCA processes for the first time under a Democratic administration.
