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EPA to Consider Listing BPA as Chemical of Concern Under TSCA

May 6, 2010

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it may initiate rulemaking under section 5(b)(4) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to add Bisphenol A (BPA) to the chemicals of concern list as "a substance that may present an unreasonable risk of injury to the environment on the basis of its potential for long-term adverse effects on growth, reproduction and development in aquatic species at concentrations similar to those found in the environment." The announcement was included in the BPA chemical action plan released by EPA on March 29, 2010. The Agency said that it intends to publish a notice of proposed rulemaking in the fall of this year.

The action plan also stated that EPA will consider initiating rulemaking under section 4(a) of TSCA to develop data with respect to environmental effects of BPA. This may include collecting data in areas around landfills and manufacturing facilities to determine the if the level of BPA in surface water, ground water, and drinking water is of potential concern, according to the Agency.

EPA did acknowledge in the action plan that "studies employing standardized toxicity tests used globally for regulatory decision-making indicate that the levels of BPA in humans and the environment are below levels of potential concern for adverse effects." However, the Agency stated that recent low-dose BPA studies raise potential concerns for long-term effects, despite the fact that regulatory authorities around the world that have reviewed these low-dose studies have "generally concluded that they are insufficient for use in risk assessment because of a variety of flaws in some of the study designs, scientific uncertainty concerning the relevance to health of the reported effects, and the inability of other researchers to reproduce the effects in standardized studies."

The EPA action plan on the environmental impacts of BPA also includes requiring manufacturers to provide test data to assist EPA in evaluating its possible impacts, and using the Agency's Design for the Environment (DfE) program to look for ways to reduce unnecessary exposures, including assessing substitutes, while additional studies continue.

A copy of EPA's BPA action plan can be found on the Agency's website.