    [Senate Hearing 118-456]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                            S. Hrg. 118-456

                       HEARING ON OVERSIGHT OF TOXIC SUBSTANCES
                        CONTROL ACT AMENDMENTS IMPLEMENTATION
    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                                  COMMITTEE ON
                          ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS

                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                        ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                                JANUARY 24, 2024

                                   __________

      Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

            Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov

                                    __________

                       U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    57-203                     WASHINGTON : 2025

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                   COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS

                        ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
                                 SECOND SESSION

                      THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware, Chairman
              SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia, Ranking Member

    BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland         KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
    BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont             CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming
    SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island     MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
    JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon                 PETE RICKETTS, Nebraska
    EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts      JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
    DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan            ROGER WICKER, Mississippi
    MARK KELLY, Arizona                  DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
    ALEX PADILLA, California             LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
    JOHN FETTERMAN, Pennsylvania
                   Courtney Taylor, Democratic Staff Director
                   Adam Tomlinson, Republican Staff Director

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page

                                JANUARY 24, 2024
                               OPENING STATEMENTS

    Carper, Hon. Thomas R., U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware..     1
    Capito, Hon. Shelley Moore, U.S. Senator from the State of West
      Virginia.......................................................     3

                                    WITNESS

    Freedhoff, Hon. Michal, Ph.D., Assistant Administrator, U.S.
      Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Chemical Safety and
      Pollution Prevention...........................................     5
        Prepared statement...........................................     8
        Responses to additional questions from:
            Senator Carper...........................................    20
            Senator Whitehouse.......................................    27
            Senator Merkley..........................................    32
            Senator Markey...........................................    32
            Senator Capito...........................................    34
            Senator Lummis...........................................    48
            Senator Ricketts.........................................    53
            Senator Sullivan.........................................    58

                              ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

    Article from E&E: Ellie Borst, EPA goes after plastics with
      chemicals plan.................................................    66
    Report on Critical PFAS Substance Uses...........................    80
    Letters to Senator Carper and Senator Capito from:
        Alliance for Chemical Distribution and 21 other associations.   120
        American Coatings Association (ACA)..........................   122
        American Chemistry Council (ACC).............................   127
        American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers and American
          Petroleum Institute........................................   128
        American Cleaning Institute..................................   130
        Global Clean Energy..........................................   131
        Solugen, Inc.................................................   133
        Univar Solutions.............................................   136
    Report from American Chemistry Council: Impact of Rising
      Regulations on Chemical Manufacturing & American Priorities....   137

        HEARING ON OVERSIGHT OF TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT AMENDMENTS
                                 IMPLEMENTATION

                                  ----------

                          WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2024

                                           U.S. Senate,
                     Committee on Environment and Public Works,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m. in
    room 406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R. Carper
    (chairman of the committee) presiding.
        Present: Senators Carper, Capito, Whitehouse, Merkley,
    Markey, Fetterman, Cramer, Lummis, Mullin, Ricketts, Boozman.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER,
                U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE

        Senator Carper. Good morning, everyone. I want to start by
    welcoming our witness, Dr. Michal Freedhoff, the Assistant
    Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution
    Prevention. Michal, as most of you know, is no stranger to EPW
    or to the issues we are going to be discussing today, having
    worked on this Committee with us for a number of years and also
    previously for Senator Markey, although he says he worked for
    her, in both the House and Senate.
        In 2016, Michal was one of the lead negotiators of the
    Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act,
    the first reform to the Toxic Substances Control Act, TSCA, in
    approximately 40 years. A number of us worked tirelessly
    alongside our staff and colleagues on and off of this committee
    to support the bipartisan reforms in the Lautenberg Act. These
    reforms would help ensure that TSCA worked as Congress intended
    to protect the health and safety of Americans and our
    environment, while also allowing for innovation and competition
    within industry.
        The task of protecting the health of our families,
    communities, and environment, while also continuing to advance
    chemistry that enriches our lives, is no easy feat. It takes
    skill and experience to navigate the complexities around the
    implementation of this law. Through TSCA, Congress has charged
    the EPA with this demanding responsibility.
        Since we last welcomed Dr. Freedhoff before the Committee
    in 2022, I want to share some of the progress that has occurred
    in relation to the implementation of TSCA. The first 10
    priority chemical reviews that were established in 2016 have
    been completed. The Biden Administration has already begun to
    publish proposed rules for these chemicals, some of which are
    known carcinogens.
        The EPA has also launched several initiatives to prioritize
    and streamline new chemical reviews for chemicals associated
    with batteries, with clean energy technologies, and with
    semiconductors to more quickly deploy investments from the
    Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act,
    major pieces of which were discussed and debated right here in
    this room. According to the EPA, since June 2023, the agency
    has more than doubled the average amount of new chemical
    reviews that they are able to complete each month. This means
    EPA is addressing the backlog of chemicals awaiting review,
    while also reviewing new submissions.
        As the members of this committee have often heard me say,
    everything I do, I know I can do better. The same is true with
    respect to TSCA. As we gather here today, my hope is that this
    hearing will offer us an opportunity to reflect on and discuss
    what is working better and what can be done to further improve
    the implementation of this critical law.
        Let's be clear: there is still more work to be done. The
    EPA needs adequate support from both Congress and the
    Administration to meet the expectations set into law by those
    of us who helped write the Lautenberg Act. As Dr. Freedhoff
    will highlight in her testimony, the EPA has been tasked with
    high expectations and a heavy workload, but has not always been
    equipped with the necessary funding to complete this technical
    work. Congress needs to ensure that the EPA has the appropriate
    resources to implement TSCA as intended.
        Further, we know that the EPA is updating its fees rule to
    be able to more effectively collect revenues from chemical
    manufacturers. This is an important part of the funding
    equation, and we look forward to hearing more from Dr.
    Freedhoff about this effort.
        Insufficient resources, over the course of multiple fiscal
    years, have led the agency to miss deadlines and delay
    decisions. This situation has created grievances from both
    those in industry pushing to get their chemicals to market and
    from environmental advocates eager to see harmful chemicals
    regulated.
        As Dr. Freedhoff will relay today, the EPA is implementing
    a law that is written to the best of their ability. That said,
    we hope today's discussion will help us determine what further
    actions the EPA can take, or what additional resources Congress
    can provide to better support the Lautenberg Act's
    implementation.
        In closing, let me just to reiterate a couple of things.
    First, I am committed to working together with Senator Capito
    and all the members of this committee to ensure that we are
    providing the agency with the resources it needs in Fiscal Year
    2024. Second, we will continue to collaborate with the EPA and
    request transparency in the agency's actions as they work to
    protect us from harmful toxins while allowing chemistry to
    usher in a new world of clean energy and lifesaving
    technologies.
        Dr. Freedhoff, we look forward to hearing from you today,
    and welcome back.
        With that, let me turn to our Ranking Member, Senator
    Capito for her opening remarks. Senator Capito?

            OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO,
              U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA

        Senator Capito. Thank you, Chairman Carper. Thanks for
    holding the hearing, and Dr. Freedhoff, thank you for being
    here. Thank you for coming to my office last week. I think we
    had a very fruitful discussion and very substantive. I
    appreciate that.
        For 3 years, the Biden Administration has been implementing
    the 2016 TSCA Amendments. Yet the slow pace, and the Chairman
    talked about this, of new chemical approvals has not improved.
    The scapegoat of blaming the prior administration is no longer
    holding water. Three years is long enough to take the reins.
        Reviews are regularly blowing past the deadlines by months,
    but in some cases years. Approving submissions within the
    deadline is not an aspirational goal, it is a legal obligation
    for the EPA to ensure that innovation is not stifled by
    bureaucracy.
        Agency timeliness in the chemical space is crucial to
    maintaining a competitiveness in the global market and also
    achieving what I believe, a point of bipartisan agreement,
    expanding key industries and onshoring critical supply chains
    right here in this Country. Chemical manufacturers in China are
    more than happy to fill the void of U.S.-based companies that
    are stuck in regulatory purgatory by the EPA.
        The slow pace of new chemical approvals forces continued
    reliance on older chemistries that may have not just lower
    performance by higher risk profiles and fewer environmental
    benefits than newer alternatives. According to a 2022 survey of
    American chemical manufacturers, 70 percent reported that they
    have decided to introduce new chemicals and therefore make the
    requisite investments in job creation outside of the United
    States. Let me repeat that: they have decided to introduce
    their new chemicals outside of the United States.
        Slower reviews create a negative spiral for the EPA's own
    work. Slower reviews means fewer submissions, and with fewer
    submissions, the agency collects fewer fees to implement TSCA.
        In addition to the slow pace, a troubling zero-risk
    approach at the EPA has taken hold of the TSCA program. Since
    2021, the number of cases that have received a determination of
    ``not likely to present risk'' has dropped by 75 percent. It
    seems that no volume of data provided by applicants is
    satisfactory to the EPA to drop its predisposed worst-case
    assumptions of risk.
        Previously, you stated that it is the submitter's
    responsibility to come in earlier to talk about the data that
    your assessors require. Those that have heeded that advice have
    not had positive things to report back. Stakeholders have
    complained of a lack of responsiveness from the EPA staff,
    moving of goalposts and presumptions of denial at the start of
    the process as well as a failure of the EPA to consider data
    and approvals from regulators in Europe and Asia. In short,
    they found no benefit from making contact with the EPA early
    and often.
        Your office seems to also have a mission creep where no
    data can satisfy risk assessments. The EPA is intruding on
    other agencies like OSHA, Occupational Safety and Health
    Administration, to which Congress has provided relevant
    authorities. The zero risk approach undermines the intent of
    the 2016 Amendments, and ironically, will hamstring the Biden
    Administration's ability to realize its own goals.
        As an example, in 2023, the EPA selected a company to
    receive a green chemistry challenge award for developing a new
    bio-based chemical feedstock that would significantly
    decarbonize the chemical industry. Meanwhile, when that same
    chemistry went through the TSCA review process, it received
    such stringent restrictions that it can no longer be
    commercialized.
        Unfortunately, this is just one of the many examples of the
    profound disconnected between the new hazard-based
    interpretation of TSCA and the Biden Administration's so-called
    onshoring efforts. It is the same disconnect that has the EPA
    mulling proposed rules to destroy domestic semiconductor
    manufacturing by effectively prohibiting essential chemistries,
    despite Congress and the Biden Administration doling out tens
    of billions of dollars to stand up capacity here. I fear the
    program is in a worse State now, maybe, than before the
    Lautenberg Act was passed.
        We may not agree on everything, but we can at least agree
    that the status quo needs to change. It is not lost on me that
    you didn't receive all the resources that you would like.
    However, simply throwing more money at the problem while doing
    nothing to change the underlying structural issues is not a
    solution, and Congress has made more resources available.
        The EPA hired almost 2,000 new employees last year, but
    somehow the TSCA program struggles to fill vacancies that have
    been open for years. It is concerning to me to hear, and we
    talked about this last week, that it has taken 2 years to hire
    a single person under the Title 42 authority that Congress
    provided in 2022.
        It is also troubling that the Office of Inspector General
    criticized the OCSPP, Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution
    Prevention, for its lack of standard operating procedures and
    outdated guidance to more effectively onboard new staff. If
    resources are a problem, then why at a time when 70 percent of
    guidance documents and standard operating procedures for the
    new chemical programs are out of date is the EPA announcing
    that it is expanding resources for elective programs without
    statutory authorization?
        Examples like this give me the impression that TSCA's
    programs resource demands and programmatic workload arbitrarily
    grow every year, no matter what resources Congress makes
    available for the policies that we choose to prioritize. During
    today's hearing, I expect that will once again hear about the
    need for more resources and we will consider that request as
    the Chairman mentioned.
        More valuable will be learning how you intend to allocate
    the resources you have and what transparent commitments you are
    willing to make to improve management of and tangibly
    accelerate the review process. I shared with you in advance
    some of the ideas that we have to achieve that goal together,
    and I hope we can discuss those this morning.
        Thank you, Chairman Carper.
        Senator Carper. Thank you so much.
        We are now going to turn to our witness. We are pleased to
    welcome you back to our committee today. Dr. Mihal Freedhoff is
    the Assistant Administrator of the Office of Chemical Safety
    and Pollution Prevention at the Environmental Protection
    Agency. Dr. Freedhoff has more than 20 years of government
    experience and service, the majority of which were spent on
    Capitol Hill, and many of which were spent literally in this
    building.
        She began her congressional service in 1996, as I mentioned
    earlier, in the office of then-Congressman Ed Markey as a
    congressional science and engineering fellow, after earning a
    Ph.D. in physical chemistry at the University of Rochester.
    With environmental expertise spanning a range of policy areas,
    her legislative work includes the 2016 reauthorizing of the
    Toxic Substances Control Act, 2019 legislation to address PFAS
    contamination, the fuel economy provisions in the 2007 Energy
    Independence and Security Act, and the law requiring creation
    of an online data base of potential consumer product safety
    defects.
        Before you begin your testimony, Dr. Freedhoff, I have
    heard a number of people say to me, I have never met anybody
    named Mihal. Where does that name come from? For those of you
    who are steeped in the scripture, you may remember the story of
    David and Bathsheba. They had a son who sadly died, and he
    ended up having other wives, one of whom was named Mihal. Mihal
    became the mother of a guy named Jedidiah. Jedidiah became King
    Solomon, one of the wisest men who ever lived. This is a new
    generation of Mihal. She has quite a history in her lineage,
    and we welcome you warmly back to the committee where you spent
    so many years.
        Please proceed. Thank you.

         STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAL FREEDHOFF, PH.D., ASSISTANT
    ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, OFFICE OF
                CHEMICAL SAFETY AND POLLUTION PREVENTION

        Ms. Freedhoff. Good morning, Chairman Carper, Ranking
    Member Capito, and other members of the committee. Thank you
    for the invitation to testify about the Toxic Substances
    Control Act, or TSCA. It is always a pleasure to come back to
    EPW.
        When I was last here, I described how years of underfunding
    had delayed our work to put essential protections in place for
    communities across our Country, and delayed our ability to
    review the new chemistries needed to power our economy. While
    those problems have not entirely been solved, and will not be
    at current funding levels, I am proud to say we have come a
    long way.
        The promise of the new law was for EPA to evaluate tens of
    thousands of existing chemicals left unreviewed under the old
    law and to write rules to protect people. We are finally
    starting to make good on that promise. We proposed rules for
    five dangerous chemicals that would collectively protect 1
    million workers and 15 million consumers. We feel a strong
    sense of urgency to get these and another four rules we have
    yet to propose across the finish line.
        I can also assure you that I have personally met with
    companies who think our proposals miss the mark for some uses.
    We are taking their input seriously and will be making some
    needed adjustments along the way.
        We are also working on our risk evaluations. We have
    released two drafts and expect to finalize seven this year.
        Last month, we announced the next five chemicals we expect
    to evaluate, including vinyl chloride, a cancer-causing
    chemical that was one of the examples used by the Nixon
    Administration when they first came to Congress and asked
    Congress to write the original TSCA. Before we even named those
    chemicals for the very first time, we also asked a very wide
    range of stakeholders for their input and their data so that we
    can get a jump start on those evaluations and come closer to
    meeting our deadlines.
        We are expanding our scientific toolbox for risk
    evaluations with approaches that focus on the most concerning
    exposures, efforts to improve our understanding of occupational
    safety practices, and ways to account for exposures to the most
    vulnerable populations. These changes will help ensure that the
    people who need chemical safety protections get them and get
    them faster.
        EPA also plays an important role in ensuring the safety of
    new chemicals. If the 2016 requirements that EPA formally
    evaluate the risks of all new chemicals before they were
    allowed into commerce had been the law all along, our people's
    pollution story, for example, might have had a very different
    ending. I know there are continuing concerns that we are not
    moving fast enough to get new chemistries to market, and I know
    there is more we can do. I refuse to accept that we have to
    choose between safety and speed.
        With the budget increase, we hired 14 new chemical staff
    with 7 more hires in the works which were much-needed
    reinforcements for a staff that had been stretched razor-thin.
    We have standardized our review approaches for some of the
    approaches used in batteries and semiconductors. We have
    developed a framework for new PFAS which will ensure their
    continued availability for sectors like the semiconductor
    industry.
        We have prioritized the review of the new chemicals we need
    to support the Biden-Harris Administration's domestic
    manufacturing initiatives, and now review those in a third of
    the time compared to other sectors. By any objective standard,
    these efforts are working.
        In Fiscal Year 2023, we completed 70 percent more risk
    assessments compared to Fiscal year 2022. Since June, we have
    more than doubled the monthly average number of completed risk
    assessments as compared to the year before. We have cleared out
    about 50 percent of the older backlogged cases.
        The truth is, we are not able to achieve all that TSCA was
    expected to. The problem is clear: TSCA is underfunded. It is
    the conclusion of EPA's analysis, the Inspector General, and
    GAO.
        The solution is equally clear. We do not need to change the
    law. We need funding to implement the law we have.
        Full funding would mean 25 new hires to review new
    chemicals. It would mean we could modernize our IT more
    quickly, modernize our procedures and science more quickly, do
    more industry outreach and come closer to meeting that 90-day
    deadline for reviewing new chemicals.
        Full funding would allow us to hire 75 new people to finish
    our risk evaluations and rules more quickly, which means that
    the protections workers and communities have been waiting for
    decades will also come more quickly.
        No matter what our budget is, you have our assurance that
    we are going to continue to build the foundation for a chemical
    safety program that can deliver both the protections and the
    regulatory certainty that Congress envisioned in 2016.
        Industry and environmental organizations all know that our
    door is always open, and I hope you will not hesitate to ask
    for additional briefings, calls, or answers to your questions.
    If a visit to companies or communities in your home State would
    help, we will do our best to make it happen. We all want the
    law to work as Congress intended, and I am fully committed to
    doing whatever it takes to get there.
        Thank you again, and I look forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Freedhoff follows:]
        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Senator Carper. Thanks so much for your testimony and for
    being with us today. You have been consistent in your testimony
    to this committee that EPA has not had adequate resources
    needed to fully implement the Lautenberg Act. I think most of
    us will agree that funding for the program can come from two
    different sources, as we know, user fees generated by EPA and
    annual appropriations provided by us, and Fiscal Year 2023
    received some additional resources from Congress, as you know,
    though while still short of the President's request.
        The EPA is also working to improve its ability to collect
    user fees.
        Would you give us a sense of what the EPA was able to do
    with the increased funding in Fiscal Year 2023? I know you have
    touched on this to some extent, but I think it deserves some
    additional attention. What more would the EPA be able to do if
    the agency received additional funding through both annual
    appropriations and more effective user fee collection?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Thanks very much for that question, Senator
    Carper. We have really prioritized hiring with that additional
    pay increase, or funding increase, and have especially focused
    our efforts on the New Chemicals Division, because we really do
    agree that that was the area that was most under resourced as a
    result of the new law, which basically changed what our past
    practice had been, which was reviewing 20 percent of new
    chemicals before they go into commerce to doing 100 percent of
    new chemicals before they go into commerce. Five times the
    amount of work, and for 6 years, zero extra dollars with which
    to do it.
        In addition to prioritizing hiring and getting people in
    the door and trained as quickly as possible, we have also
    really tried to standardize our approaches for chemistries that
    we know industry comes in with a lot of applications for. For
    example, we have been working to create a standardized and
    streamlined review process for the chemicals that are needed by
    the battery sector. We have a years-long collaboration with the
    semiconductor sector, and that has resulted in a regulatory
    path forward for dozens of the photo-acid generators that they
    need to do their work. I personally met with them a couple of
    weeks ago and we talked about expanding that collaboration in
    the future.
        We have really tried to work smarter, not harder, which is
    something Senator Markey often says, and are going to continue
    to do so with the funding that we have. If we got more, we
    would be able to modernize those standard operating procedures
    more quickly. We would be able to modernize our science
    policies more quickly. We would be able to create efficient
    approaches for classes of chemistries more quickly, and of
    course, we would also be able to write rules more quickly and
    do risk evaluations more quickly, which would move through the
    tens of thousands of chemicals that were left unreviewed under
    the old law more quickly as well.
        Senator Carper. All right, thank you.
        Before I turn to Senator Capito for her questions, I have
    one more I want to ask. In 2018, the previous Administration,
    you will recall, promulgated a user fee rule that was based on
    faulty data, which has limited the EPA's ability to collect
    user fees as intended by those of us who worked to pass the
    Lautenberg Act.
        The Biden Administration has been working to update this
    data and revise the rule. Would you please explain to us where
    the previous rule went wrong, and how the Biden rule is
    proposing to correct is? Also, when do you anticipate the new
    rule will be finalized?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Sure, thanks for that question, Senator
    Carper. The Congress expected the EPA would write a fees rule,
    and collect 25 percent of our authorized TSCA costs from fees.
    The first fees rule didn't collect any fees until Fiscal Year
    2019, and it exempted the cost of the first 10 risk evaluations
    from being subject to fees at all. Those were by far the most
    expensive thing that the agency was working on in those first 4
    years of the law.
        As a result, we only collected a couple of million dollars
    a year, $2 million to $5 million a year in the first couple of
    years under the new law. Moreover, to calculate the 25 percent
    baseline, the previous administration used the cost of the old
    TSCA before it was revised to expand EPA's authority. As a
    result, overall, that first fees rule collected less than half
    of the 25 percent of authorized TSCA costs that Congress
    expected it to collect.
        We have done things differently. We have tried to heed
    congressional direction to reflect the accurate costs of
    implementing the law in our proposed fees rule. I think that
    rule is in the final stages of review at OMB, and I expect it
    to be finalized in the coming weeks.
        Senator Carper. Good, thanks. Senator Capito?
        Senator Capito. Thank you. I mentioned the document that we
    had shared earlier, last week, and you all came back with some
    responses to that on ways that we could improve the system. I
    wanted to get your initial reaction on any of these you think
    would help the most, maybe prioritize one, two, or something of
    that nature.
        Ms. Freedhoff. Sure. Thanks again for the constructive
    meeting we had, Senator Capito. I always appreciate the way you
    and your staff work with the agency since I have been there,
    and of course on the Hill as well, when I was here. I thought
    your list had a lot of really good ideas in it and I think
    there is a few I feel we can commit to, as long as our budget
    is not cut.
        First, there was a program called the Sustainable Futures
    Initiative that existed before the law was changed. The purpose
    of that program was for EPA to help industry write better new
    chemical submissions, do training, technical assistance, and
    that sort of thing.
        Assuming our budget is not cut, we would like to hire
    someone who is entire job it will be to revamp the Sustainable
    Futures Initiative, and build on the outreach industry that we
    have been doing over the past few years, to help them help us,
    really, in reviewing new chemicals.
        Another thing that your list said, that sometimes we use
    models instead of industry submitted data, and there was sort
    of an interest in getting more transparency from us on why we
    might choose to do that if we have actual industry data. We
    think that is a great idea and are absolutely able to commit to
    that.
        Senator Capito. I am going to stop you there, because I
    will have an additional, on the resource issue, because this
    keeps coming up. The budget has gone up, and I mentioned in my
    opening statement the interest in Title 42, which used to be
    the universal title that does everything, but it gave you an
    opportunity to get some highly specialized individuals.
        You have had this ability for 2 years and have not used it.
    It is hard for me to square, I need more resources, when we
    gave, as a Congress, you an ability to really specialize here
    and it hasn't been used. What kind of assurances are more
    resources going to solve this issue?
        Ms. Freedhoff. I totally appreciate the question. We are
    actually really excited about that authority, although it seems
    that we have not used it.
        Senator Capito. You and only one other entity has that
    ability.
        Ms. Freedhoff. It took us more than a year to kind of do
    the administrative things we needed to do, both within the
    agency and with OPM to get the all clear to actually use the
    authority. We have not had the clearance to use it for two full
    years.
        We do want to use it, and I think the very first place we
    would use it is in the New Chemicals program. Having a senior
    scientist who can really help us modernize those processes
    would be great.
        I will also say, though, that those hires cost more money.
        Senator Capito. Right.
        Ms. Freedhoff. When we are balancing, can we have three
    risk assessors, or one senior scientist, we are not quite
    comfortable yet to put our money on the senior scientist. We
    are getting there.
        Senator Capito. Well, I would hope that authority, since it
    is so unusual, and I think could be impactful, just on the face
    of it having a senior scientist and then having younger, newer
    hires coming in would have a mutual benefit there as well.
        Let me ask you, one of the suggestions was sort of a mid-
    review meeting, a mid-stage meeting between engineering team
    members and submitters. You were pretty negative about that
    when we talked earlier last week. I do think, and I think some
    of the stakeholders feel that if they can see where they are
    before they get into the engineering phases and other more
    technical phases of the assessments, so they could make the
    adjustments mid-stage instead of waiting toward the end, what
    would your response be to something like that? Seems to me that
    would benefit both sides of the submission.
        Ms. Freedhoff. I did take that back to my staff. They do
    feel like it could have the unintended consequence of slowing
    not just that application down, but other people's applications
    down as well. We did have two other ideas that we think get to
    the same problem that you are raising.
        First is, we encourage companies to come in and have
    presubmittal meetings with us. We do not always have engineers
    in those meetings, and we could. I think that would be one way
    for companies to sort of get a reality check on what
    information they might want to include in their package before
    they even send their package to the agency.
        The second thing we are able to do now that we have some
    more staff is actually create a second queue, a different line
    for those applications that are almost at the end of the
    process, but something in the engineering changes and they need
    a little rework before they can get it over the finish line.
        Senator Capito. Right.
        Ms. Freedhoff. We actually want to create a dedicated, a
    tiger team of people whose job it will be to get those
    applications over the finish line more quickly. We actually
    think that might be a faster way of getting at the problem.
        Senator Capito. Yes, I think that makes a lot of sense. One
    thing I would say is, in talking with submitters ourselves
    about this mid-evaluation meeting, I think their opinion sort
    of anecdotally would be, if I can get more clarity, more
    procedural clarity mid-way through the process, I will take a
    longer process. In the end, it ends up being longer anyway.
        I would just put that on your plate with everything else.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Carper. Thank you very much.
        Senator Boozman, you are next. Welcome, and good morning.
        Senator Boozman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Thank you for being here, we appreciate your many years of
    service in lots of different ways.
        Section 9 of TSCA requires EPA to consult and coordinate
    with other Federal agencies on its TSCA activities for existing
    chemical reviews, to maximize enforcement and reduce
    duplication. Longstanding executive orders also require
    interagency reviews of significant EPA actions.
        I guess the question is, why hasn't EPA sought feedback
    from other agencies like USDA, FDA, the Small Business
    Administration, Department of Defense on its soon-to-be-
    released draft of the TSCA risk evaluation of formaldehyde?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Thanks very much for the question, Senator.
    We actually engage more across the executive branch than I
    think had previously been done. We have an interagency TSCA
    group that includes membership of DOD, the Ag Department, FDA.
    It meets almost monthly, every month or two, I think. We do
    talk to them in a very proactive way about the work that we
    expect to be coming up. We talk to them about the chemicals
    that we have just put onto the TSCA process before those
    chemicals were named to the public.
        We are actually doing a lot of very proactive engagement
    with the rest of the Federal family. We will certainly be doing
    that when it comes time to release our draft formaldehyde risk
    assessment as well.
        Senator Boozman. I understand the problem of being
    underfunded. Also, I do think there is a lot of stove piping.
    We should be working more interagency. Here is what the Small
    Business Administration said in their file comments last month
    on your risk evaluation framework rule. ``EPA should commit to
    a robust interagency process for a review of the draft and
    final risk evaluations.'' Unfortunately, neither the preamble
    nor the current EPA practice reflect the commitment to
    interagency collaboration. EPA's risk evaluations ``create a
    significant risk that the resulting risk management regulations
    will impose unnecessary and duplicative burdens on small
    businesses with minimal public benefits.'' ``It is not good use
    of EPA's resources to duplicate the effort and expertise of
    these other Federal offices.''
        Ms. Freedhoff. I think we greatly value the input from
    other Federal agencies that we get during the risk evaluation
    process and the risk management process, which does go through
    formal interagency review. We have been proactively reaching
    out to the agencies that we know use some of the chemicals that
    we are looking at to make sure that we account for critical
    uses and needs that they might continue to have.
        I think those conversations are going very well. I have
    personally been involved in many of them. We do take that
    responsibility to talk to the other agencies extremely
    seriously.
        Senator Boozman. I have the opportunity to serve also as
    Ranking Member on the Agriculture Committee. Formaldehyde is
    something that many users use there to keep us safe and keep
    our food supply safe, keep it affordable. Farmers use
    formaldehyde to reduce virus infectivity in pigs, as a barn
    disinfectant, protect against African swine fever. Egg
    producers rely on formaldehyde during incubation to help
    protection hatchling eggs against bacteria like salmonella.
    Animal feed, again, the list goes on and on.
        Is it true that the EPA is considering an existing chemical
    exposure level for formaldehyde which is lower than the levels
    of formaldehyde humans exhale as much as 16 times below
    exposure levels set in European jurisdictions?
        Ms. Freedhoff. First of all, let me just say that we have a
    great relationship with your staff on the Senate Ag Committee,
    same with Senator Stabenow's staff. We view that relationship
    as extremely constructive and collaborative. I would also note
    that the pesticidal uses of formaldehyde are not subject to
    TSCA.
        Getting to your question about the exposure limits, we have
    not calculated a level like that for formaldehyde yet. It is
    something that we do at the end of our draft risk evaluation
    process. We have not published one.
        I can commit to you that if the risk evaluation, which by
    law is not supposed to consider costs and other non-risk
    factors like the ones you are raising, if we end up with a
    level like that in the draft risk evaluation, it can not be
    measured because it is below background, we will say right in
    the draft risk evaluation that it will not be the thing that we
    would propose to do in our rule. We are not going to propose
    something that can not be met, if that is the way it turns out
    in our risk evaluation.
        Senator Boozman. I would hope not. Thank you.
        Senator Carper. Senator Boozman, good to see you. Thanks so
    much.
        Senator Mullin, how are you?
        Senator Mullin. Good, thank you. Good to see you.
        Ma'am, thank you for being here. This committee has been
    focused on plastics for quite some time. As I always like to
    say, almost a war on plastic. I want to be very careful as we
    are moving forward that the EPA is actually working with
    industry, not just working with activists and knowing where we
    are headed.
        I do have some concerns, because last month the EPA
    announced five more chemicals for prioritization underneath
    TSCA, all of which use plastics, the chemicals that they are
    using all goes toward plastics, including vinyl chloride, which
    is a chemical used for PVC piping. Obviously, that is something
    I am very familiar with, and it raises alarms, because we use
    PVC piping in almost all your homes now, either through your
    drainage or your water, most of our drinking water is delivered
    through PVC piping.
        When we start looking at eliminating, there's a lot of
    questions that say, OK, what are you going to do then?
    Obviously, what are you going to replace it with?
        You were quoted recently in a press release, you chose to
    quote a partisan, what I would consider very partisan, radical,
    anti-plastic activist and president of Beyond Plastic named
    Judith, I will leave her last name out of it. The article,
    Chairman, that I would like to enter into the record from E&E
    News, December 14th, a quote that Dr. Freedhoff credited, that
    meeting with Judith is making a real difference as we move
    forward to make these decision.
        Senator Carper. Without objection.
        [The referenced information follows:]
        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Senator Mullin. Thank you. My question, ma'am, is when you
    go on a victory lap with activists and include their quote
    directly under your press release, how do manufacturers,
    contractors, that work in industry have any confidence that
    this is not just some activist move driven by and prejudged
    before it even comes out?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Thanks for the question. I think that any of
    the stakeholders who work on TSCA, whether they are companies,
    whether they are families who have lost family members because
    of exposures to chemicals, environmental organizations, labor
    organizations, other Federal agencies, there is not any of them
    who would say that they feel like me or my staff are not
    accessible to them, do not listen to them, and are not doing--
    --
        Senator Mullin. Being accessible is different.
        Ms. Freedhoff. And are not attempting to fairly implement
    the law.
        Senator Mullin. I think being accessible is not the
    question here. When you quote an activist in your paper, when
    you are releasing information that you are going after plastics
    and you are quoting the president of an activist group that is,
    you know, Beyond Plastics, and you didn't quote any industries
    in there. When you got a movement toward that to begin with,
    being accessible does not mean you are listening, does not mean
    you are taking the industry into account or what is the next
    step for the industry.
        A lot of people listen in Washington, DC. They already had
    their mind made up where they are headed. When you quote
    someone like that, it would obviously send shockwaves to the
    industry saying that your mind is already made up before you
    even made this decision that you are looking into it.
        I am asking, how can they be confident that you are
    actually taking them into consideration?
        Ms. Freedhoff. First of all, I would say we met with the
    industry to tell them what our short list of chemicals was
    before we met with any, with that particular organization.
    Second of all----
        Senator Mullin. Why would you choose to name and to quote
    her?
        Ms. Freedhoff. I think there is an undeniable interest in a
    large part of the community in taking a look at the chemicals
    that are used to make plastic. Vinyl chloride was actually the
    example used by the Nixon Administration in the 1970's for why
    Congress should write a Toxic Substances Control Act in the
    first place.
        I assure you, we have a multi-year scientific process that
    precedes any regulatory decisions. We have not even started
    that process. We are committed to being there----
        Senator Mullin. When you say multi-year, what are you
    talking about? Like so before your decision is coming out on
    anything, you are going to spend years studying this?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Correct.
        Senator Mullin. What does that look like?
        Ms. Freedhoff. In the next year, what we are trying to do
    is work with Federal agencies, industry, other organizations to
    get data and really sort of get ahead of our risk evaluation
    process so we can meet our deadlines. After this year passes,
    the law gives us three to three and a half years to actually
    finish the draft risk evaluation.
        There will be multiple public comment periods as well as a
    peer review of the draft risk evaluation during that time.
    Really, an enormous number of opportunities for companies to
    provide their perspective and give us their data. It is only
    after that that we would move to proposing a rule for vinyl
    chloride. I can assure you with full confidence that nobody at
    the agency has made up any, has any idea of what that rule
    would look like. We have only just started.
        Senator Mullin. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Carper. Thanks for those questions. We have been
    joined by Senator Markey. While he prepares to ask some
    questions, I do not think this was Richard Nixon, but one of my
    favorite quotes is, people may not believe what we say; they
    will believe what we do. I think that is something for us all
    to keep in mind.
        Senator Markey, welcome.
        Senator Markey. Thank you.
        Senator Carper. You must have a sense of deja vu here.
        Senator Markey. Eleanor Roosevelt said, ``I do not see the
    things which have been done, but only those things which remain
    to be done,'' which I think fully reflects the philosophy of
    our witness here today. There is more work to be done.
        First of all, thank you to Dr. Freedhoff for decades of
    work, including in my office to protect the public from
    dangerous chemicals. As you know, I have fought for decades on
    behalf of the families in Woburn, Massachusetts. In Woburn,
    there was a boy named Jimmy Anderson. He was like any other kid
    from Woburn, except that at 3 years old he was diagnosed with a
    rare form of leukemia.
        The kids in his neighborhood were like kids anywhere around
    Boston, except that they were also being diagnosed with this
    rare form of leukemia at an alarming rate in his neighborhood.
    Because of their exposure to trichloroethylene, or TCE, these
    children fell sick and died, deaths that may have been
    prevented if we had laws in place that allowed us to ban the
    use of these chemicals to begin with. Finally, last October,
    you led the EPA in proposing to ban the use of TCE, an
    incredible accomplishment.
        That story became the book, A Civil Action, and then the
    movie, A Civil Action, about those families. It was nominated
    for an Oscar. Dr. Freedhoff, did the 2016 TSCA Amendments make
    it finally possible to take action against TCE?
        Dr. Freedhoff. Thanks, Senator. The answer is unequivocally
    yes. I learned about the Anderson family from you, but it
    wasn't until I started working on the TCE rule at EPA that I
    realized that Jimmy would have been exactly my age if he hadn't
    died as a kid. He might have been sending his kids off to
    college, he might have had a life like mine.
        It is not just his family. On the way to meet you that day,
    when we announced the proposed rule, I phoned two other parents
    who lost children and let them know that we were finally going
    to be addressing the risks of TCE because Congress had finally
    given the authority to EPA to do that.
        Senator Markey. We were able to get it designated as a
    Superfund site, to get it cleaned up. It is now the Jimmy
    Anderson Transportation Center, named after that boy who Anne
    Anderson had brought into my office when he was 9 years old,
    asking for help. We didn't even have a law at that time, we
    didn't have a Superfund law.
        Senator Mullin asked about the listing of vinyl chloride
    and what it means for companies. That is a fair question and I
    am glad Dr. Freedhoff noted those companies are part of this
    process. I want to raise another group of stakeholders here.
    Next week will mark 1 year since the toxic train derailment and
    chemical fire devastated East Palestine, Ohio and the
    surrounding community. Vinyl chloride was the main chemical
    being transported on that Norfolk Southern train, more than
    887,000 pounds. I was glad to see EPA's recent announcement
    that vinyl chloride is under consideration to be a high
    priority chemical for regulation under TSCA.
        Dr. Freedhoff, would an eventual ban or use restriction on
    vinyl chloride help protect communities like East Palestine
    from hazards ranging from work exposure to disastrous
    explosions?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Thanks, Senator. As I was saying to Senator
    Mullin, our risk evaluation and our rule on vinyl chloride has
    to go through very rigorous scientific process. The reason why
    the Nixon Administration used vinyl chloride as one of the
    three examples of why Congress had to write the Toxic
    Substances Control Act was because they knew even then that it
    caused liver cancer to workers.
        I am sure that occupational safety practices are vastly
    different now than they were in the 1970's. The truth is that
    the original 1976 law that was supposed to ensure the safety of
    existing chemicals never really lived up to that promise. What
    the Nixon Administration said to Congress at the time, it is a
    great quote, so I hope you do not mind if I read it.
        Senator Markey. Please.
        Ms. Freedhoff. This is what they said. ``We should no
    longer be limited to repairing the damage after it has been
    done nor should we continue to allow the entire population or
    the entire environment to be used as a laboratory.'' That was
    what the Nixon Administration said when they asked Congress to
    write the original law.
        The original law failed to protect people against existing
    chemicals. The 2016 law that you and so many members of this
    committee worked on has the potential, and I think we will be
    able to see it realized, not just with TCE and vinyl chloride,
    but with many of the other chemicals that are long overdue for
    a look.
        Senator Markey. It is not a ban on the transportation of
    it, it is whether or not it should be manufactured at all,
    because it is too dangerous.
        Ms. Freedhoff. Or whether it should be manufactured and
    used in a way different than it currently is.
        Senator Markey. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Carper. Thank you, Senator Markey. Senator Cramer,
    welcome.
        Senator Cramer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to
    the Assistant Administrator for being here.
        Thank you for the response letter to me and several of my
    colleagues of both the House and the Senate regarding
    chlorpyrifos and the Eighth Circuit's vacating of their final
    rulemaking.
        For the benefit of the dozens of people watching this
    online somewhere, the farmers in the prairies and throughout
    the Country, I want to ask you to drill down a little bit on
    some of the specifics in response. Specifically, is the EPA
    beginning the process of restoring, or how are you restoring
    those tolerances? I will give you all of them up front and then
    you can just elaborate.
        To include like, timelines, if you have some specific
    timelines, what has been done? I would also just add on behalf
    of several constituents, they feel like the EPA has been
    fairly, well, not very specific. Some of the statements since
    the vacating of the rulemaking have not provided very much
    clarity.
        What I want to give you the opportunity to do over the next
    4 minutes is provide that clarity for them, drill down a little
    bit on the specifics, the timelines, the tolerances that will
    restored, and what-not, if you could, please.
        Ms. Freedhoff. Happy to do that, Senator. I actually met
    with a bunch of the brewer groups yesterday on this question.
    They told us about some of the confusion that some of the State
    regulators have, and we are following up on that. We did try to
    reach out to everyone in advance of our December statement, but
    we will clearly need to do a better job and talk to more
    people.
        First of all, what the Eighth Circuit did was it vacated
    EPA's rule that took away the permission to use chlorpyrifos on
    food crops. That decision has already happened, and all of
    those permissions to use chlorpyrifos on food are back in
    effect.
        EPA has to write basically a technical correction to the
    Code of Federal Regulations. I think that is happening next
    week, but it is already in effect.
        I think the next thing that we are doing, and the timeline
    on this I can not be quite as specific about, is the Eighth
    Circuit decision as well as a 2020 document that the agency put
    out on chlorpyrifos really focused on 11 uses of chlorpyrifos
    that had high benefits. What we are working to do is talk to
    the companies that make the pesticide in order to incorporate
    some additional mitigations that were talked about in the 2020
    decision, as well as some of the Endangered Species Act work
    that we need to do in order to comply with that law.
        I know those conversations are well underway. Since it is a
    conversation with external parties, I can not be more specific
    about when we will be finished.
        Senator Cramer. The whole thing is about 2 months old. You
    touched on the confusion that seemed to permeate the early
    statements. All I would say, wrapping up, Mr. Chairman and
    Madam Assistant Administrator, just be as clear as you can be.
    This is very, while we are heading into, hard as it is to
    believe in North Dakota today, we are heading toward spring,
    and the new seasons and all of that. Everybody from the
    manufacturers, the suppliers, the users themselves, the
    producers themselves, that seek this clarity, it is critical to
    get it done in a timely fashion. I appreciate your attempt.
        Ms. Freedhoff. Absolutely, and if you get questions and
    people are still confused, just send them to us. Our staff want
    to be clear, also. It actually helps us when people come
    straight to us and ask us the questions.
        Senator Cramer. I appreciate that. Thank you very much.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Carper. Senator Merkley, if you are ready, you are
    next in line, and then Senator Ricketts.
        Senator Merkley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, good
    to have you.
        OMB is currently reviewing its Asbestos Part 1 rule for
    chrysotile asbestos. Can you give us a sense of a date when the
    final rule will be available?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Thanks very much for that, Senator. As you
    know, it is our first Section 6 rule that went through the new
    process. It is not an accident that it was the first one,
    because of the symbolic significance of the failed asbestos ban
    from the 1980's, and the fact that asbestos continues to kill
    tens of thousands of people every year.
        It is at OMB, I think the 90-day period ends maybe in, I
    think it ends in early March. It is hard to predict, though,
    since it is not in our control, whether it will hit the early
    March timeline or not. I know we are in very active
    conversations with our agency partners and are really eager to
    unveil that final rule.
        Senator Merkley. Well, it takes continuous advocacy,
    because things go to OMB and just disappear. It is like a, what
    the hell happened to it. Keep pressing, and keep us posted on
    that.
        This rule only affects one form of asbestos. There are
    seven other types of asbestos fibers. Does EPA have a plan to
    address the additional asbestiform varieties?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Yes. We are in the middle of Asbestos Part
    2. As you might remember, when the last administration chose to
    only study chrysotile because that form is the only form used
    in ongoing uses, there was an adverse court decision that
    caused the agency to have to split that risk evaluation and
    rule into two. We are working on the second part of asbestos,
    which includes the other forms and includes legacy uses, and it
    includes reasonably available information on its presence in
    talc.
        We expect to both release a draft and final risk evaluation
    for Part 2 in this calendar year.
        Senator Merkley. OK. Thank you. I am glad to hear that.
        One concern that we have heard about is in the peer review
    process. EPA released peer review comments, and one reviewer
    wrote that, ``The members of this panel who are reviewing this
    document have been told, `we are not to talk to one another. We
    have been told there will be no conference calls with one
    another. We have been told there will be no face to face
    meetings.' This is entirely inconsistent with the history of
    EPA's Science Advisory Panels.''
        I have concerns about that point. I have heard EPA saying,
    well, we are not going to let people talk to each other because
    we do not have enough funding, and we are not going to have
    conference calls if we do not have enough funding.
        A lot comes from people actually sharing their comments
    with each other. Is this an accurate description of what is
    going on? why is this a good process?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Thanks very much for that question. First of
    all, let me just say that we think the scientific advice that
    we get from our peer review committee is invaluable. We really
    do listen to what they say and take their input seriously.
        I think it is also a pretty standard process though to do
    peer review, to do letter peer reviews of scientific documents.
    One of the reasons why we moved to doing that for Asbestos Part
    2 is because a lot of the science, the exposure models and
    other information that we are using for Part 2, we had already
    had peer reviewed when we went through the Part 1 risk
    evaluation.
        We also felt that moving to a letter peer review in this
    case would also really help us finish that Part 2 risk
    evaluation more quickly.
        I do not want you to come away thinking that we are
    abandoning the peer review process. We are absolutely not. I
    think we did choose for the first time to try a different
    approach for this one, and part of the reason for that was our
    sense of urgency in completing that risk evaluation.
        Senator Merkley. Mr. Chairman, I think this is something we
    need to take a further look at. The idea that scientists are
    being told they can not talk to each other, even Zoom meetings,
    in person, I do not think you get the best result having
    individual people told they are in silos and have to operate
    without the process of consultation. I am not sold. Count me
    skeptical.
        Ms. Freedhoff. I appreciate it. Thank you.
        Senator Merkley. My final question, actually I am out of
    time.
        Senator Carper. Just make it a brief one.
        Senator Merkley. OK. In terms of PFAS, it is not a short
    question, so I may have to submit it to the record or just
    followup with you.
        Senator Carper. If we can do that, that would be good.
        Senator Merkley. OK, that is what I will do. Thank you.
        Senator Carper. Thanks very much.
        Senator Ricketts, good morning.
        Senator Ricketts. Good morning, and thank you, Chairman
    Carper, and Ranking Member Capito, for holding this hearing
    today. Dr. Freedhoff, thank you for joining us.
        I have a few examples behind me of chemicals that have
    undergone the TSCA process which are critical for global food
    production. Formaldehyde is necessary for livestock production,
    to prevent disease. While you all may know that Nebraska is the
    Beef State, something you may not know is that we are also the
    global leader in irrigation system production such as what you
    see here, a center pivot, actually about 80 percent of all the
    world's center pivots are made in Nebraska.
        Vinyl chloride is critical for the irrigation tubing,
    hoses, and drip lines. Both ethylene oxide and acetaldehyde are
    used in the production of crop protection tools, protecting our
    food supply from insects and disease. These examples really
    exemplify the importance of predictable and reliable
    permittance of chemicals.
        As Governor of Nebraska, I implemented Lean Six Sigma for
    our State agencies to improve our processes. My understanding
    is the Trump Administration established an Office of Continuous
    Improvement at the EPA to implement the Lean program at the
    EPA. We talked about this a little bit yesterday, Dr.
    Freedhoff.
        I am just looking for a simple yes or no on these. Does the
    New Chemicals program still utilize the Lean program?
        Ms. Freedhoff. No, but we do seek to continuously improve
    through many of the same approaches that are in Lean Six Sigma.
        Senator Ricketts. Does the Office of Continuous Improvement
    still exist at the EPA?
        Ms. Freedhoff. That I am not sure about. I know there are
    agency-wide conversations about ways to improve our processes
    and when one part of EPA comes up with something, it is
    actually shared throughout the agency.
        Senator Ricketts. Well, there are clearly other process
    improvement methodologies besides Lean Six Sigma. If you could
    followup with me on the Office of Continuous Improvement, if
    that still exists at EPA.
        Ms. Freedhoff. Sure.
        Senator Ricketts. Also, we have heard that one of the
    problems holding up PMNs, Project Management Networks, are
    changes to the staff contacts throughout the process. If a new
    project manager is assigned to a PMN, will you commit to us
    that that project manager will then notify the submitter within
    a week to let them know there has been a change?
        Ms. Freedhoff. I think that is an incredibly reasonable
    idea. We would be happy to do that. I think that would improve
    transparency for everybody.
        Senator Ricketts. Great, thank you very much, Dr.
    Freedhoff.
        The EPA issues existing chemical exposure limits, in other
    words, regulating chemicals throughout the workplace exposures.
    However, they are multiple times more stringent than the rest
    of the world. These limits are based on information from EPA's
    Integrated Risk Information System, or IRIS program, which is
    not congressionally authorized and is a hazards based program.
        This is not consistent with the agency's statutory mandate
    to complete risk-based chemical reviews using the best
    available science, not to mention that OSHA already is
    completing the work on this through some of their enforcement
    permissible exposure limits. In addition, the American
    Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists established
    exposure limits far above EPA's ECHOs, Extension for Community
    Healthcare Outcomes. These values are regularly updated
    following industry standardization practices.
        For many of the chemicals under EPA review, including
    asbestos, methylene chloride, perchloroethylene, carbon
    tetrachloride, and trichloroethylene----
        Senator Carper. Could you say that again?
        [Laughter.]
        Senator Ricketts. I thought I did about as good as I could
    the first time through.
        The ECHOs have come out after the proposed and final risk
    evaluation, some with proposed risk management rules which left
    stakeholders with no real opportunity to comment on these
    levels.
        This is a significant problem that is compounded by the
    fact that these numbers are extremely low, often below the
    level of detection, and much lower than regulatory numbers in
    the rest of the world, as we kind of mentioned.
        Setting levels below the level of detection is a de facto
    ban on these chemicals. For clarification, when you set a final
    regulatory ECHO for industrial uses, does that mean there is a
    level at which no unreasonable risk exists?
        Ms. Freedhoff. I think what we are saying for some of those
    levels is that the proposed exposure levels that came out
    address the unreasonable risk that was identified in the risk
    evaluation. It is important to understand that the risk
    evaluations are prohibited by law from considering costs and
    other non-risk factors, like the point you made about them
    being unimplementable.
        I think as we move through the regulatory process following
    the risk evaluations, we are engaging pretty actively with
    industry to make sure that we really understand what their
    occupational safety practices can achieve. I think you will see
    some shifts in our approaches between proposed and final rules
    for some of the chemicals.
        Senator Ricketts. OK, thanks. If I understand what you are
    saying, and correct me if I am wrong, the process has been set
    up, and the rule has been established and the law has been
    passed actually to make it so that you recommend some of the
    risk levels below detection level because you are not allowed
    to consider other factors? Is that accurate?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Not quite. In the risk evaluations, we are
    not supposed to be considering costs or other non-risk factors.
    When we write rules, we 100 percent consider those things. I
    think in an exchange I had earlier with Senator Boozman, I
    believe it was, going forward, if we get a draft risk
    evaluation that leans to a masked outcome that the draft
    proposed occupational safety limit is below background levels
    for that chemical, we will see very clearly in the draft risk
    evaluation that that number will not be the basis of our rule.
        Senator Ricketts. OK, so it is not a de facto ban in that
    case, then?
        Ms. Freedhoff. No.
        Senator Ricketts. OK, thank you very much, Dr. Freedhoff, I
    appreciate your explaining that to me. Thanks.
        Senator Carper. Senator Ricketts, thank you for those
    questions.
        I think Senator Fetterman is trying to get here to join us.
    Do we expect any other Republican colleagues to join us?
    Senator Lummis, OK, good.
        I want to return to the issue of new chemical review for a
    minute or two. As you know, our committee has consistently
    heard concerns from stakeholders about the pace of new chemical
    reviews. Specifically, the chemical industry believes that EPA
    is moving too slowly, whereas others are concerned that EPA is
    not being thorough enough.
        Dr. Freedhoff, your office has taken some innovative
    approaches to improve the pace of new chemical reviews. We
    talked about some of that already. Would you please elaborate
    on some of those approaches and specifically, what has worked
    well, and how have those approaches allowed EPA to review these
    new chemicals faster, while also being more thorough? Where
    might there still be room for improvement? In the spirit of
    everything that we do, we know we can do better. Go ahead.
        Ms. Freedhoff. Thanks for that question, Senator Carper. I
    think we have talked about new chemicals a little bit in this
    hearing, and I really do think there is still upside in what
    the agency can deliver. I think we have already demonstrated
    some, but I think we can continue to do more.
        It used to be when EPA didn't know enough about a new
    chemical before the 2016 amendments were passed, that chemical
    went right into commerce without a formal EPA review. As a
    result, there are a whole bunch of types of chemistries that
    EPA never really had to write anything down about. One of the
    things we have tried to do is work to write down the science
    policy that would allow us to standardize and streamline the
    review for chemicals that we see a lot.
        One example, mixed metal oxides, which are used by the
    battery sector in particular. We had companies tell us that
    they expected to send us dozens of those every year as we move
    to increased electric vehicle production in this Country. We
    decided we really needed to get ahead of that and worked on our
    science policy and risk assessment approach for that class of
    chemistry.
        We are doing that with other sectors, too. The fragrance
    sector has a couple dozen PMNs that have been stuck at the
    agency because of science questions like that. While I do not
    think we can do the exact same thing for the fragrance sector
    as we did for the battery sector, we are convening a scientific
    workshop with them and other stakeholders next week, I believe,
    to try to work to figure out what the answers to those
    questions are, so that we can move those PMNs along also.
        Really it is a class work smarter, not harder, modernize
    our approaches, be strategic about where we focus our resources
    and try to increasingly improve both our speed and our
    protectiveness.
        Senator Carper. Let me ask one more question, then we will
    turn to Senator Lummis. There are differences of opinion, as
    you know, about the amount of money that you need to run the
    programs in your agency. The House has proposed further cuts to
    the TSCA program in its Fiscal Year 2024 appropriations bill.
    Can you give us a sense of how you will prioritize your work if
    this is enacted? What will have to be sacrificed?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Thanks for that question. It is important to
    remember, before the law was changed, EPA did zero
    comprehensive risk evaluations. Of the 30 chemicals that have
    gone through the process, we have met the statutory deadline
    for only one of them.
        Before the law was changed, we wrote zero comprehensive
    rules to protect people against some of the most dangerous
    chemicals that have ever been made or used in this Country. Now
    we are in the middle of working on 10 of those. We have missed
    the statutory deadlines for those as well.
        We have talked about our consistent struggle, since the new
    law was enacted, to meet Congress' expectation that new
    chemicals would been reviewed protectively within 90 days.
        The House budget would take us back to the budget of the
    old law that didn't do any of the things that the new law has
    told the agency to do. What it means is that the workers and
    communities who have been waiting for decades to get the
    protections they need will have to wait longer. What it also
    means is that the new chemistries that are needed to reshore
    the domestic manufacturing of everything from semiconductors to
    biotechnology to refrigerants to comply with the EMAC,
    Environmental Management Assistance Compact, to all of these
    other chemistries, they will need to wait a little bit longer,
    too. We simply will not have the resources to do what Congress
    expected us to do.
        Senator Carper. All right. I think that is an important
    point for us to keep in mind as we go through the
    appropriations process in the days to come.
        Senator Lummis, we are glad to see you. Welcome aboard.
        Senator Lummis. I am delighted to see you too, Mr.
    Chairman. Thank you very much for holding this hearing, and
    thank you, Ranking Member Capito.
        My questions at least are going to start with PFAS. As you
    know, there is an ongoing debate over the definition of PFAS as
    it applies to a range of Federal regulatory regimes. I am
    concerned that there is no current consistent agreed-upon
    definition for these chemistries being used across Government
    agencies.
        While some PFAS chemistries may need urgent regulations to
    keep our communities safe, I am concerned that EPA is
    needlessly restricting critical PFAS chemistries essential for
    American manufacturing. I am not the only one that is
    concerned.
        Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask unanimous consent to
    enter into the record a report from the Department of Defense
    on critical applications of PFAS substances.
        Senator Carper. Without objection, so ordered.
        [The referenced information follows:]
       [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Senator Lummis. Thank you.
        Now, I want to quote from the Department of Defense report.
    It says, ``Losing access to PFAS due to overly broad
    regulations or severe market contractions would greatly impact
    national security and DOD's ability to fulfill its mission and
    impact domestic industrial manufacturing and supply.''
        The report raises concerns about regulatory risks to our
    Nation's national security and industrial base and overall
    economy on page 15. After all, as the report reminds us, the
    DOD is reliant on the commercial industry for its applications.
        As the report cautions, there is no consensus on PFAS
    definitions. A simple grouping together of over 38,000 specific
    individual chemicals does not inform whether a compound is
    harmful or not.
        First question. Are you aware of the 2023 DOD report
    regarding PFAS?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Yes, Senator, I am aware of it.
        Senator Lummis. OK. Does the EPA intend to establish an
    expedited review process for PFAS with less concerning
    hazardous profiles, or for those used in limited volumes but
    critical to technological innovation?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Yes, actually my office has already
    developed a framework just like that. What it basically says is
    if the PFAS is going to be used in a sophisticated industrial
    environment, like the semiconductor industry has, workers are
    protected, environmental releases are controlled, there will be
    a path through the New Chemicals program for PFAS like that. We
    agree that while PFAS have unquestionably contaminated a large
    number of places in the United States, we also think that if
    the new chemicals provisions of the 2016 law had been in place
    all along and EPA had been charged with making sure that the
    new chemicals were being used responsibly, we would have a lot
    less PFAS pollution in the Country than we do now.
        Senator Lummis. Have you met with DOD to try to go through
    with them which of those PFAS chemistries they believe are
    pivotal to national security, as they mentioned in the report,
    and those that are not?
        Ms. Freedhoff. I met with DOD myself a number of times, not
    just on PFAS but on other chemicals that are going through the
    TSCA process. We are very committed to continuing to work with
    them to make sure that our work in the Chemicals Office does
    not undermine military readiness or remove their access to
    things they need to keep us safe.
        Senator Lummis. Can you help us by returning to this
    committee a list of these 38,000 chemicals that DOD feels that
    they need to have access to without undue restriction, and
    those that you feel are appropriate for higher scrutiny?
        Ms. Freedhoff. I am not sure how I would go about that list
    without knowing exactly what DOD needs. I can also say that
    there are more than two options under TSCA. It is not use it
    without restriction or ban it. There is also, use it
    responsibly. I think that is what we are striving for when it
    comes to critical uses of chemistries, not just PFAS, but some
    of the others that we are looking at as well.
        Senator Lummis. OK. What might that look like?
        Ms. Freedhoff. It could just be, do not dispose of it in
    sources of drinking water. It could be, make sure that when
    your workers are handling it, they are protected, either with
    PPE, Personal Protective Equipment, or with engineering
    controls that prevent exposures to them during key tasks. It is
    a whole range of things. I do not think the choice is ban them
    all or continue as we have for the past decades in ways that
    clearly harmed human health and the environment.
        Senator Lummis. As you know, we are sometimes demanding
    that we onshore products that we have offshored. Then we want
    to restrict them from onshore manufacturing to the point that
    we can not onshore them.
        We are sort of giving with one hand and taking with the
    other. I think this is an area, chemistry, where there needs to
    be some very careful consideration, working with industry,
    working with Department of Defense to make sure that we are
    finding the sweet spot.
        I thank you for your testimony. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        Senator Carper. Thank you for those questions.
        Next, we are going to recognize Senator Merkley again, if
    we are not joined by anyone else. Senator Capito will be after
    Senator Merkley.
        Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        As long as we are on PFAS, EPA finalized a rule in
    September of last year that requires reporting for
    manufacturers to share data about the chemical identity, the
    uses, the volumes made and processes, so on and so forth.
        Dr. Freedhoff, when will that data collected by EPA be
    available to the public?
        Ms. Freedhoff. I know that it is due for different
    reporters at different times. I think we are expecting to get
    it next fall, to start getting it next fall. I know we will be
    working to make as much of it public as we can.
        Senator Merkley. Does that mean it is not clear that the
    public will have access to that data?
        Ms. Freedhoff. The law requires us to protect confidential
    business information, so if we get something into the agency
    that is marked that way, we will have to take some time to
    review it and make sure that we can get it into a form that the
    public can see.
        The entire point of that data collection effort, which was
    something that this committee actually wrote the law directing
    us to do, was to make sure that data was available and useful
    to everyone who might want to see it, including members of the
    public.
        Senator Merkley. Yes, I hope that that information, which
    will help inform the PFAS debate extensively, is available to
    help inform the debate. Thank you, and the understanding of the
    challenge.
        I want to turn to plastics-to-fuel. Pyrolysis is being
    advocated by many to be able to essentially use heat to return
    plastics down to a State where it is essentially once again
    fuel. The EPA has studied, well, what happens if you have that
    in a marine setting, what happens if you have that in an
    airport, a jet setting?
        EPA's model produced a lot of concern, a lot of articles
    written about the high level of toxicity really was exceeding
    the standards that we normally have, producing cancer in one in
    10,000 as opposed to the standard of one in 1 million, the one
    in four cancer risk from a lifetime of exposure.
        Then I think EPA has said, oh, well, that is scary. Let's
    just set this whole model aside, and then approve the
    chemicals. How does setting a whole model aside and just
    approving the chemicals serve the scientific process and the
    whole goal of TSCA to evaluate chemicals with deliberate
    scientific analysis?
        Ms. Freedhoff. You said a lot in that question, Senator.
    First of all, the original chemicals that took the plastics and
    turned them into fuels were approved in 2015 and 2019. What we
    looked at was taking what companies wanted to do, which was
    take small amounts of those chemicals, mix them with
    traditionally drilled fuels, put them in a refinery, and come
    out with something that looked for all intents and purposes
    exactly like normal jet fuel or normal marine fuel.
        I think our staff was quite convinced that the safety
    profile of the resultant fuels was going to look exactly the
    same as what you would get if you just drilled for oil and put
    the oil through a refinery. That said, I do think that when our
    exposure model spit out numbers like that, we should have done
    a better job at reality checking ourselves.
        When we did that after the fact, we learned that it was
    sort of clear that those exposure models are exceedingly
    conservative. They basically assume that 100 percent of the
    fuel burns in one location and the same person stands there and
    breathes 100 percent of the exhaust fumes from the plane in at
    one time.
        That is clearly not a real world scenario, not a real world
    risk. It was on us to explain it better, and we are learning a
    lot from that experience.
        Senator Merkley. Or to go back and say, we think our
    assessment model was flawed, and now we are going to get a more
    realistic assessment model and actually use an assessment model
    rather than just throwing it aside and ignoring it.
        Ms. Freedhoff. I think what we learned, normally when we
    make these, when we do not have actual exposure information,
    which is often the case for a new chemical, we just assume that
    the worst case scenario is some set percentage of it gets into
    the environment, or some set percentage of it exposes workers.
    That model fundamentally fails when the end product is a fuel
    that is supposed to be burned.
        I agree with you; we should not be doing it that way for
    transportation fuel.
        Senator Merkley. I do think the reason it is raising
    concerns is that the plastics themselves have huge numbers of
    contaminant chemicals. The pyrolysis process vents off a lot of
    stuff, and often, we have made an emphasis on environmental
    justice in this community, in communities that are poor, in
    communities that are primarily Black and Brown communities.
        Then those same contaminants survive and are in the fuel
    when it is burned. Therefore, our evolving understanding of
    this potential pathway, which could involve fuels that are not
    just a slight amount added to some other fuel, but burned in
    the whole as folks try to get a more circular economy. These
    are significant concerns that should not be ignored in this
    process.
        Ms. Freedhoff. I agree with you. I think we know a lot more
    about those potential impurities now than we did in 2015 and
    2019 when those original chemicals were approved. I think our
    policy going forward, including for these particular fuels, is
    to make sure that there are not impurities like that, if
    companies are going to move forward with a process that creates
    those fuels.
        Senator Merkley. Thank you.
        Senator Carper. All right, thanks, Senator Merkley.
        Senator Capito?
        Senator Capito. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I am going to kind of go back on a few things that have
    been alluded to in some of the questions. It seems there has
    been a question of EPA's interpretation of what is reasonably
    foreseen. Is it reasonable to foresee that somebody would drink
    bleach? Of course not. None of us are going to drink bleach.
    Well, I wouldn't say none of us.
        These speculative, unintended uses of chemicals are being
    used to justify overly stringent restrictions. Do you believe
    that every potential use of a chemical, including the
    intentional misuses, are reasonably foreseeable or a reason to
    restrict?
        Ms. Freedhoff. No, I do not.
        Senator Capito. Well, good. I believe what we are hearing
    too is that sometimes your office will continue to assume non-
    compliance on OSHA standards. Senator Ricketts kind of alluded
    to the OSHA issue. I, in my opening statement, talked about a
    mission creep here.
        What is your relationship in terms of, how do you put the
    bright line between where you are and where OSHA is? It sounds
    like you have more than enough on your plate. I am not sure you
    want go into what OSHA is doing as well.
        Ms. Freedhoff. TSCA says that we have to consider the risks
    to potentially exposed and susceptible subpopulations. That
    term is explicitly defined to include workers.
        Senator Capito. It includes what?
        Ms. Freedhoff. It includes workers. Explicitly by law it
    includes workers. OSHA wrote most of its chemical-specific
    rules in the 1970's. When you go on their website, the very
    first sentence that you read is that their standards are
    outdated and inadequate for the protection of worker health.
    That is what OSHA says about its own chemical safety worker
    rules.
        The other thing is that OSHA rules do not cover everybody.
    They do not cover self-employed workers and they do not cover
    public sector workers that are not subject to a State OSHA
    plan. Even if the OSHA rules weren't outdated and inadequate
    for the protection of worker health, we would still need to
    recognized that some of the workers that the TSCA risk
    evaluation uses cover wouldn't be subject to them in the first
    place.
        What I do think we are trying to do is work extremely
    closely with both OSHA and NIOSH, National Institute for
    Occupational Safety and Health. We are trying to align what we
    write in our final rules to be as consistent as possible with
    what their practices and approaches are for things like
    monitoring and detection. I also think we are working really
    closely with industry, because in many cases, industry has gone
    way beyond those 1970 standards when it comes to protecting
    their workers, because those standards are outdated, and those
    sophisticated companies know it.
        We are also trying to align with the best industry
    practices that we are made aware of as well, as we make sure
    that our final rules are implementable.
        Senator Capito. Well, I mean, I guess my interpretation of
    that would be, there is laxness in, or inadequacy in a
    particular different part of the Department of Labor, is
    obviously where OSHA is. I just think with what we have kind of
    uncovered and agree where some of the issues are, staying in
    the lane would probably be helpful.
        Let me ask you another thing to clarify. I said this in my
    opening statement, and I want to make sure we are in agreement
    here, where I said that companies are opting to go offshore to
    create chemicals and that your applications for new chemicals
    are down, therefore your user fees, we are getting to the
    resource thing, the user fees, the amount of people paying use
    fees is going down.
        Is that an accurate statement from your viewpoint?
        Ms. Freedhoff. I do not think so. I think it was accurate
    for a couple of years after the enactment of the 2016 law. We
    have actually seen new chemical submittals kind of come back up
    to what they have been historically in the last couple of
    years.
        Senator Capito. Well, we need to follow that, because I
    think that is an important issue in terms of being able to move
    forward.
        Another suggestion, question, is, there is an ability,
    because you are talking about being resource constrained, there
    is an ability for you under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act
    to be able to access other Federal employees at no cost to your
    agency for specialized things. We see this in endangered
    species, Fish and Wildlife, we see them borrow from other
    agencies when they have a large request. I have seen that in my
    own home State.
        Is this something that you have considered to fill in the
    gaps that you say you have?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Actually, we have already done that. Under
    the Fiscal Year 2022 budget, which gave us a really small
    increase in resources, and wasn't enacted until March 2022.
    That was sort of more than a year of this Administration with a
    flat budget. We actually did borrow some staff from other parts
    of the agency, specifically for New Chemicals, because of the
    dire situation that New Chemicals was in.
        I think it is one of those things, though, that most
    Federal agencies, including EPA, have resource issues and have
    workload issues. Other parts of the agency also have laws that
    they have to implement.
        There is not an infinite capacity for us to be able to do
    that. We have done it in a temporary basis with New Chemicals.
        Senator Capito. OK, so I think we have a lot of agreement.
    We will keep working on the list that we put forward.
        I do not want the hearing to end, to have any kind of
    misunderstanding that questions or accountability issues means
    that any of us, certainly me in particular, would want to
    sacrifice any kind of safety issues around a chemical use for
    speed. We do have certain deadlines in the law. You were
    probably around when TSCA was written, and those were
    established to be reasonable deadlines at the time. There is a
    reasonable expectation that those can be met.
        I think, while I expressed to you last week the frustration
    I have as a member, I think probably all of us, does not matter
    what side of the aisle you are, it may matter what
    administration it is, it is always, I just need more money, if
    I had more money, I would solve every single problem.
    Sometimes, we have to be more efficient, we have to be more
    innovative, we have to be more, use the authorities, like Title
    42 that we have to be able to move forward for more specialized
    investigations, listen more to the stakeholders.
        All these kinds of things I think we can make improvement
    on, understanding that the resource issues--but you have gotten
    more resources, and certainly EPA, 2,000 more people. I mean,
    could the Administrator reprioritize? This is an important
    area.
        Another thing, then I will get off my high horse here, is
    if we look at chemicals, I think the assumption is sometimes,
    well, you just want more chemicals that are going to be more
    hazardous and more flammable, and everybody thinks it is always
    the bad part of chemistry.
        The good part of chemistry is getting held up, too. The
    chemistries that would take our old chemistries off the shelf
    and make improvements, have better health outcomes, maybe even
    be more efficient, maybe even be more economical to use and
    certainly can be made here, they are getting held up at the
    same time.
        We will just continue to monitor this. I appreciate your
    frankness, and thank you for coming.
        Senator Carper. Senator Markey, if you are ready to go
    again for another round, I will recognize you. Otherwise we
    will go to Senator Whitehouse.
        Senator Markey. I would love to hear his questions.
        Senator Carper. Senator Whitehouse?
        Senator Whitehouse. Thank you, Senator Markey. Thank you
    very much for being back here again on one of our favorite
    topics and one where I think we did some very good bipartisan
    work. I think of Senator Inhofe, who was not always somebody
    that I agreed with, and our good work together on this issue.
        I would like to ask you about the process involved. As you
    recall, as you know, we set up a process for the industry to
    make application to go through the TSCA process. What I hear we
    have seen is a lot of industry revisions of the application.
        Could you tell me first of all, is that true? How often is
    that happening? Are there multiple revisions sometimes, not
    just one but a cascade of cumulative revisions? What effect
    have those revisions had on the ability of EPA to meet the
    schedule and proceed to the conclusion of the process?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Thanks very much for that question, Senator.
    You are right, sometimes companies do come in toward the end
    and give us new information that we wish they would have given
    us at the very beginning. That causes us to have to rework,
    redo parts of the risk assessment, and that does not just delay
    their chemical, it delays everybody else who is waiting behind
    them in line.
        I think some of that is a reflection of the still pridian
    law, companies do not necessarily know what we need to know to
    review their chemicals quickly. One of the things that we have
    really tried to do is outreach to industry, do webinars, do
    trainings, really kind of tell them from the beginning, this is
    what we really need to review your chemical as quickly as
    possible.
        Some of those efforts are working. I think we could do
    more, and I think industry could do more to get a complete
    application in front of the agency in the first place. I think
    it would have benefit to everybody.
        Senator Whitehouse. Is the source of these revisions just
    confusion? Or do you think there is also some motivation to
    delay?
        Ms. Freedhoff. I do not think there is motivation to delay
    on the New Chemical side. I think what happens is they didn't
    write down in their application that they were going to dispose
    of the chemicals properly, and then when we do our risk
    assessment, we assume they are going to release it to water.
    Then they see that, and they say, oh, we weren't going to do
    that, and we say, well, you should have told us that from the
    start. It is a lot of those kinds of changes. I do not think
    they are intentional. I think they are a little bit a lack of
    experience, a little bit of a failure to realize that the more
    they give us, the better it is for them.
        Senator Whitehouse. Okay. You think the kinks in the
    process have now been worked through pretty well?
        Ms. Freedhoff. I think it is a work in progress. I think we
    have made a lot of improvements, but it is important to note
    that before the 2016 law, we only did formal safety reviews on
    about 20 percent of new chemicals. Now we have to do them on
    100 percent, and for the first 6 years of the law, we got zero
    extra dollars.
        The agency was sort of hamstrung for a good, long time. Now
    that we have gotten a modest increase in our budget, we are
    working to build in some of those efficiencies without losing
    the protectiveness of what we are supposed to be doing.
        Senator Whitehouse. How many employees does EPA have?
    Thirteen thousand?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Ish, yes. In the New Chemicals Division, we
    were able to hire 14 new people with the Fiscal Year 2023
    budget increase, with a handful more that are still in the
    works. We are not at 15,000 people in the New Chemicals
    Division.
        Senator Whitehouse. I get that. When I worked in the
    Department of Justice, and there was an urgent matter, they
    would detail people from the field to headquarters to work on
    it, just as they have done with the January 6th prosecutions. I
    hope that EPA is at least considering borrowing from the
    regional offices and putting people in detail for significant
    projects like this, where the immediate staff are not
    sufficient to meet the new need.
        Ms. Freedhoff. We have done some detailing, and will
    continue to do that. I do think some of the expertise we need
    is pretty specialized. There just are not that may
    toxicologists around who know how to study exposures.
        Another thing we have done is we have dedicated a person in
    the Toxics Office to really revamp our recruitment process, and
    really go places to advertise the jobs that we have that we
    have not previously gone. Now we are getting a lot of qualified
    applicants for those jobs, which is great. It hasn't always
    been the case.
        Senator Whitehouse. Well, thank you. It is great to see
    progress in this area.
        Thank you very much, Chairman.
        Senator Carper. Thank you, Senator Whitehouse.
        Senator Fetterman, welcome. You are recognized. Good to see
    you.
        Senator Fetterman. First, I just have to acknowledge your
    recent happy birthday, Mr. Chairman. Sixty-three, was it?
        [Laughter.]
        Senator Carper. God bless you.
        [Laughter.]
        Senator Fetterman. Thank you.
        I live across the street from a steel mill, actually the
    largest steel mill in my State, one of the remaining ones left.
    I have some really personal experience of myself and my family
    of the impact of the industrial sector and what that can have
    on the surrounding community.
        I do not believe that we have to choose between keeping
    good union jobs and also be averse to a clean, safe
    environment. Do you agree, how you are seeing the dynamic play
    out, how you lead the EPA's work regulating toxic substances?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Yes, Senator, I do. As we talked about last
    week, I really do not believe you have to choose between good
    paying jobs and having clean air to breathe and clean water to
    drink.
        One thing that we have been doing is working really hard
    with the sectors that are trying to bring good jobs into this
    Country to make sure that we are approving their chemicals more
    quickly, or as quickly as we can. For example, we have
    prioritized the chemicals that are needed by the semiconductor
    sector, by the batter sector, by the biotechnology sector, and
    put those to the front of the line whenever we can. Now we
    approve those in about a third of the time as compared to other
    sectors.
        We do think that you can use chemicals responsibly, keep
    your workers safe, keep communities safe and do well as a
    company.
        Senator Fetterman. The EPA, are you familiar with the
    history, who established the EPA?
        Ms. Freedhoff. President Nixon.
        Senator Fetterman. Nixon, well, he was a Republican, right?
        Ms. Freedhoff. He was.
        Senator Fetterman. That is right, he was, oh my gosh.
    Actually the fact that the EPA was funded by a Republican, and
    now it is really a shame that sometimes that has drifted away
    from us, and that gets weaponized here, where two things can be
    true at the same time, that we need to maintain and protect
    good union jobs that sustain the community and families, but
    also, we know a clean environment is pretty useful. I think it
    is useful all the time. I think both can happen together. I
    would like to remind everybody that a lot of important
    environmental things were done under leadership of a Republican
    administration.
        Now moving on, of course we are all familiar with the
    Norfolk Southern train derailment in Ohio. That is very close
    to my State's border. It released more than 100,000 gallons of
    vinyl chloride into our community, as I am sure you know. Last
    month, the EPA announced that the vinyl chloride would be
    prioritized for considering under the Toxic Substances Control
    Act. We are still looking at years of that evaluation to be
    finished, and a safety protocol to be recommended. Why does
    this process take so long?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Thanks very much for that question, Senator.
    Ironically, it was the Nixon Administration also that ked
    Congress to write the Toxic Substances Control Act. They
    actually used vinyl chloride as one of three examples for why
    that law was needed back in 1971. They basically said, when
    they asked Congress, this is what they said: ``We should no
    longer be limited to repairing the damage after it has been
    done, nor should we continue to allow the entire population or
    the entire environment to be used as a laboratory.'' That was
    the Nixon Administration's reason for why Congress had to write
    TSCA in the first place.
        When Congress rewrote that 1976 law, it was because it
    wasn't effective. It was because when EPA tried to ban
    asbestos, a chemical that has killed tens of thousands of
    people every year for decades, EPA's ban was overturned in
    court and it rendered the original law unable to be used. When
    Congress came together and wrote the 2016 law, it defined
    fairly prescriptively the process by which EPA was supposed to
    review those thousands of chemicals, including vinyl chloride,
    that hadn't been evaluated before.
        The timelines in the law are very clear. We need to spend a
    year with two public comment periods before we can start work
    on vinyl chloride. Once we do start work on vinyl chloride, the
    law says we have three to three and a half years to finish our
    work and really and really comprehensively assess all the
    risks. After that, it is a year to propose a rule and a year
    after that to finalize a rule.
        It is a long process. The idea was, instead of doing
    little, we will regulate this use here and that use there, the
    idea behind the law was, we really want to comprehensively
    study all the ways in which a chemical is made and used, and
    write a comprehensive rule using that best available science in
    order to give the public confidence that the chemical can
    continue to be used safely for the uses that we think can
    continue.
        Senator Fetterman. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and thank you.
        Senator Carper. Senator Fetterman, thank you for those
    questions. Senator Lummis, you are recognized again, and a vote
    is underway. I think we are about 10 minutes into our first
    vote of a couple of votes. Senator Lummis, then Senator Markey.
        Senator Lummis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do appreciate
    the perspective of the gentleman from Pennsylvania. I too live
    next to a refinery and have benefited personally from the
    existence of the RCRA law, without which we would have had no
    remediation of significant migration of hydrocarbons into the
    creek where our cattle drink. This is a bipartisan subject,
    this is not partisan. Reasonableness becomes the issue.
        I want to return to the ECHOs Draft Rules. I have heard
    from experts in industry who say there is no realistic way to
    implement some of the draft rules on ECHOs. My question here
    is, when you hear from industry that there is no realistic way
    to implement a draft rule, will any of the proposed changes be
    adopted between the proposal and the final rule?
        Ms. Freedhoff. I do think we are working quite closely with
    industry to understand what might be needed by way of
    adjustments to make those more implementable. I will say that
    for a number of our chemicals, the data we have shows industry
    is already either meeting our proposed levels or pretty close
    to it.
        They will change between proposed and final sometimes.
    Sometimes it might be more time to come into compliance,
    sometimes the numbers themselves might change. I think when we
    propose a rule and look for public comment on it, we are
    serious about reviewing those comments and making adjustments
    whenever we think they are needed.
        Senator Lummis. Question about existing chemicals that were
    never peer-reviewed. It is my understanding that EPA's worker
    exposure levels for existing chemicals were not peer-reviewed.
    Can you commit to ensure there will be peer review and public
    comment on these values going forward?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Just to elaborate a little bit, the last
    administration wrote the risk evaluations. I think they were in
    such a rush to get them done that they didn't really think a
    few steps ahead for how they were going to do the worker
    protection, how they were going to address the worker
    protection risks that they found. That is why those exposure
    limits came out after the risk evaluations came out.
        I will say, all of the data that went into deriving those
    limits was peer reviewed. That said, I also know that industry
    really wants to see them earlier in the process, really wants
    to see them go through the peer review process, and I think
    that is entirely reasonable. That is what we have started to do
    and will continue to do going forward.
        Senator Lummis. Thank you. Question about hazard based
    review of a new chemical. Can you explain to me what factors
    are considered in a hazardous based review of a new chemical,
    and how that differs from the standard applied to older
    chemicals under TSCA?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Sure. I think with existing chemicals, we
    have a lot of data. Sometimes we have data, like in Woburn,
    Massachusetts, where we know that exposure to TCE caused a
    cancer cluster. We have information about what that chemical
    did to people that were exposed to it.
        With new chemicals we do not have that usually. What we
    have sometimes are tests that the company has put together,
    sometimes using non-animal testing to show what the new
    chemical's expected hazard might look like. Sometimes what we
    do is we look at the structure of the new chemical and compare
    it to something that do know something about, and infer what we
    can from reading across what we know about an old chemical to
    what we can expect to happen from the new.
        It is a variety of techniques, but with new chemicals they
    are by definition new, there is less information about them.
        Senator Lummis. I appreciate that.
        Mr. Chairman, I want to just return for 1 second to the
    PFAS discussion, and just remind you that DOD's report kind of
    sets off some alarm bells about the importance of working
    closely with DOD. His debate over the definition of PFAS is
    going to be extremely important to them. Just to implore you to
    work closely with Department of Defense on these definitions,
    and to try to make sure that we are not compromising our
    national security or our defense posture by a regulatory regime
    that is so rigid that it provides no escape valve.
        Thank you. Thanks for being here. I yield back.
        Senator Carper. Thanks for your focus on PFAS and permanent
    chemicals. It is much needed and much appreciated.
        We have been advised by the cloakroom that we are almost 20
    minutes into our first vote. Senator Markey, I am going to
    recognize you but not for a real long time. Thank you.
        Senator Markey. I appreciate it. I was willing to wait a
    good long time, in my Chevron deference to Senator Whitehouse
    to go first, not understanding all of the implications of that
    decision in terms of other people who would be asking
    questions.
        [Laughter.]
        Senator Markey. I thank you for that.
        The Trump Administration violated TSCA by ignoring fence
    line communities in its chemical exposure and risk analysis.
    What is a fence line community? Well, I guess I grew up in a
    fence line community, because I lived three blocks from the
    Malden River, and my mother told me when I was 10, whatever you
    do, Eddie, do not swim in the Malden River, because it was
    black, with a kind of pre-Jimi Hendrix purple haze over it,
    because of the coal companies, the chemical companies, all of
    the polluting companies right along the Malden River.
        Just do not swim in that river. There were no fences in
    that era. Now the company has put up a fence. One hundred feet
    later at the homes of the kinds who were playing, and then it
    goes out for two or three miles.
        There was an underestimation of the harms and it
    undervalued the lives of environmental justice communities
    living near polluting facilities. The Biden Administration made
    the right call by changing that harmful policy of the Trump
    Administration by actually look at the risks that dangerous
    chemicals pose to fence line communities, people who live right
    up next to the facilities.
        Dr. Freedhoff, when done as required by TSCA, do fence line
    analyses help EPA better protect vulnerable communities by more
    fully accounting for how those communities get exposed to
    dangerous chemicals?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Thanks very much, Senator, and absolutely. I
    toured a number of those communities and visited with them in
    Houston. It was just unbelievable to be standing in the middle
    of a playground and seeing 10 smokestacks literally on the
    other side of the road. Unquestionably there are some
    communities that are more exposed to more chemicals than
    others.
        Unquestionably, even though TSCA requires us to look at one
    chemical at a time, the fact is that you sometimes breathe more
    than one chemical at a time and you sometimes drink water that
    has more than one chemical in it as well.
        What we have been doing is trying to create the scientific
    tool box, so to speak, that will let us really understand those
    risks, the risks from more than one chemical, the risks from
    exposure through both the air and the water to the same
    chemical, and the different risks that some communities have
    compared to others.
        Senator Markey. Thank you for that. There was like a cloud
    over my ward growing up. In fact, there was a union leader in
    my office last week, and we were talking about the Lewis Candy
    Company where I worked making gum drops and jelly beans when I
    was 16, right on the Malden River.
        He said, oh, yes, everyone knew there was like a huge black
    cloud over that building, which we didn't even think about,
    because that is just the way it was along the Malden River,
    just this big cloud which today would be something that
    obviously families would be concerned about young people being
    exposed to.
        Dr. Freedhoff, what would you say to those who say that
    TSCA is not an integral part of the EPA's ability to use
    science to keep the United States and workers clean and
    healthy? What would be your message to them?
        Ms. Freedhoff. There are people who say that TSCA is not
    supposed to be for protecting workers who might be exposed to
    chemicals inside facilities. There are people who say that TSCA
    should not be about protecting people in communities who
    breathe or are exposed to chemicals from breathing air or
    drinking water.
        I kind of struggle to understand what TSCA is about, if it
    is not supposed to be about protecting the people who work with
    chemicals, and it is not supposed to be about the people who
    are exposed to those chemicals in their homes and communities.
    I think very clearly that is what it is about. It is important
    for us to be writing rules that are implementable and do not
    prevent the reshoring of jobs in this Country.
        I really do not think you have to choose between jobs and
    safety. We can do both things, and I think we have to.
        Senator Markey. I agree with you. I was a worker in one of
    those facilities. Absolutely, it is historic work that you are
    doing, and clearly within the full intent, the penumbra of what
    the law intended. It is to protect people from these dangerous
    chemicals and you are doing an historically great job in
    accomplishing that goal.
        Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Carper. Thank you, Senator Markey, very, very much.
        Dr. Freedhoff, is there anything you have not been asked,
    you have been asked a lot of questions here today, but anything
    you might like to have an opportunity to just very, very
    briefly highlight before we close?
        Ms. Freedhoff. Honestly, all I would say is that I really
    value the bipartisan engagement on EPW. It was integral to
    getting the law passed in the first place. EPW was really the
    center of all of those years of work to get the law over the
    finish line. I really do welcome and appreciate the ideas, all
    the constructive engagement, and all of the collaboration as we
    work to implement the pridian law.
        Senator Carper. My colleagues have heard me say over and
    over again, bipartisan solutions are lasting solutions. It took
    a hard-fought, difficult struggle to get us to where we
    actually could enact and sign TSCA into law. Our thanks to you
    and all the staff folks who helped us in those days to get the
    ball into the end zone.
        My dad used to say, some of the hardest things to do are
    some of the things that are most worth doing. Passing TSCA was
    a hard thing to do. It is not enough for us to just say, we are
    going to pass this bill, and that is that. We have a
    responsibility to make sure it is being implemented in the
    spirit it was intended.
        We need to make sure that folks who are needed to help run
    these programs are well chosen and they do a good job. We have
    to make sure that funding is provided. In this case here, we
    have two major sources of funding, one is EPA has the
    opportunities in those fees, and we have the obligation to
    provide reasonable appropriations to make sure they are being
    well utilized.
        I want to comment you. I have talked to several of our
    colleagues who said that you have taken time to come and meet
    with them and talk with them and their staffs. I urge our
    witnesses to do more of that. I think it pays great benefits.
    President Biden likes to say, all politics is personal, all
    diplomacy is personal. It always has been, and it continues to
    be that.
        The last thing I would say, there is a shared
    responsibility in terms of oversight. We have a responsibility,
    and the House has that responsibility, and we need to work in a
    spirit of collaboration and cooperation with them and the
    administration and other interested parties.
        Not forgetting the football playoff season, a guy who pulls
    for the Eagles pretty regularly, I am a great Andy Reid fan. He
    used to coach for the Eagles. As he used to say, it is not time
    to spike the football, and it is not time to spike the football
    on this front either.
        Thank you for joining us today. Thanks even more for your
    service to our Nation, and our thanks to your family for
    sharing you with us for all these years. We appreciate your
    dedication and your insight into some of the challenges that
    EPA is facing in the implementation of this legislation. I
    believe both you and the members of the committee are committed
    to addressing TSCA implementation challenges. We also have a
    shared interest in both protecting people from exposure to
    harmful chemicals, and preserve our Nation's ability to compete
    and bring innovative chemicals into the market.
        I am an optimist by nature, and I am optimistic that we can
    work together to continue to make progress. With the right kind
    of leadership here on this side of the dais and on your side, I
    think we can continue to make progress.
        Before we adjourn, a little bit of housekeeping. I want to
    thank our staffs, your staff, and also the staffs of our
    committee for a lot of work that went into the preparation of
    this hearing. I just want to say a special thanks to everyone,
    and Senator Capito.
        Senators will be allowed to submit written questions for
    the record until the close of business on Wednesday, February
    7th, which is about 2 weeks from today. We will compile those
    questions, we will send them to our witnesses who are going to
    be asked to respond by Wednesday, February 21st.
        With that, it is a wrap. This hearing is adjourned. Thank
    you so much.
        [Whereupon, at 11:52 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
       [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                               [all]