The Rhode Island legislature recently passed a bill to extend the effective date of a ban on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in food packaging from January 1, 2024, until July 31, 2024. The bill, 2023—S0724, which focuses on PFAS in drinking water, groundwater, and surface water, was signed into law by Governor Dan McKee on June 22, 2023.
The topic of our June 13, 2023, Food & Chemicals Unpacked episode was “Pit Stop at Chevron: Will We See a Difference in Deference?” In this episode, we discussed potential changes to a cornerstone of federal administrative law called Chevron Deference. This standard has long governed how much deference federal courts give to decisions made by agencies, such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It is based on a 1984 case, Chevron v.
On June 3, 2023, The Washington State Department of Ecology (DoE) published its Draft Identification of Priority Chemicals Report to the Legislature as a part of the Safer Products for Washington project, cycle 2, implementation phase 1.
LieAnn Van-Tull, an associate with Keller and Heckman’s Food and Drug Packaging and Tobacco and E-Vapor practice groups, was sworn in as President of the Washington Bar Association (WBA) on June 14, 2023.
On June 7, 2023, U.S. Representatives Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) introduced the Food Chemical Reassessment Act of 2023. The bill would require the establishment of an Office of Food Safety Reassessment (the Office) within the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) and require that the Office reassess the safety of at least ten substances added to food or food packaging every three years, beginning in 2024.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently added four new substances to its Inventory of Effective Food Contact Substances (FCS) Notifications. The newly listed substances and the manufacturers are listed below.
On June 8, 2023, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) announced it will not proceed with the Proposition 65 listing process for antimony (trivalent compounds) as a substance known to cause cancer. OEHHA had announced on September 30, 2022, that it intended to list antimony (trivalent compounds) as a carcinogen under Proposition 65 pursuant to the “Labor Code” listing mechanism.
On May 31, 2023, Washington State’s Department of Ecology (DoE) adopted a final rule under the state’s Safer Products for Washington Program, which includes a ban on bisphenol-based epoxy liners in drink cans and a reporting requirement for bisphenol-based epoxy liners in food cans. Tetramethyl bisphenol F (TMBPF)-based epoxy can liners are exempted from both the ban and reporting requirement.