Chemical Engineering Trends, Intellectual Property Litigation, & Industry Predictions – IMS Insights Podcast Episode 50
What to Expect in Chemicals Policy and Regulation and on Capitol Hill in 2023
PFAS are a chemically diverse family of over 10,000 synthetic fluorinated compounds, all containing at least one carbon-fluorine (C–F) bond. This makes them highly persistent and earns them the nickname "forever chemicals."...more
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on July 28, 2025, the release of a memorandum with additional context on occupational exposure data for di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP). According to EPA, the...more
On 17 July 2025, a bipartisan bill aimed at uncovering the potential human health implications of exposures to microplastics in the food and water supply was introduced into Congress. Introduced by Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-OR),...more
On 8 July 2025, the European Commission presented its European Chemicals Industry Action Plan. The Action Plan aims to strengthen the competitiveness and resilience of the European chemical sector while driving the transition...more
Do you want to destroy PFAS? But why stop there? Continue on to convert them into high value fluorochemicals, and recover and reuse the phosphate salts. That’s what one new study claims it can do....more
As reported in our May 14, 2025, blog item, on May 12, 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) denied a petition filed under Section 21 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) seeking to prohibit the use of...more
A recent study published in Nature Microbiology by researchers at the University of Cambridge revealed that certain human gut bacteria may have the capacity to bioaccumulate per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and...more
On June 30, 2025, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published a report entitled 2D Titanium Carbide MXenes: Case Study Report on Advanced Materials. Within OECD’s Working Party on Manufactured...more
On June 2, 2025, the United Kingdom (UK) Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) requested comment on a draft indicative list for long-chain perfluorocarboxylic acids (LC-PFCA), their salts, and related...more
The Presidential Commission to Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) has released its assessment identifying key drivers of childhood chronic disease, including poor diet and aggregation of environmental chemicals. The report...more
The European Commission (EC) requested that the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) assess the risks posed by certain hexavalent chromium substances. ECHA announced on April 29, 2025, that it has concluded that a European Union...more
This week I had the pleasure of speaking with Karyn Schmidt, now a principal at Squire Patton Boggs in its Public Policy practice, after spending 25 years at the American Chemistry Council (ACC). For the many members in the...more
On April 8, 2025, New Mexico became the third state to sign into law a comprehensive ban on the use of intentionally added per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in consumer and commercial products: the “Per- and...more
The California Senate Environmental Quality Committee passed California Senate Bill 682 aiming to ban the sale of products with intentionally added perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) unless deemed to have...more
Maine recently published proposed rules (PDF link) aimed at implementation of its existing statute (which we’ve discussed here, here and here) limiting the sale and distribution within the state of products containing...more
The United Kingdom’s (UK) Health and Safety Executive (HSE) announced on March 21, 2025, that it has published the following annual report and work program on activities under the UK regulation on the Registration,...more
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on March 11, 2025, the rescheduled meeting dates of the Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC) that had been previously scheduled for February 2025 to consider...more
The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) announced on February 26, 2025, that it has updated its annual statistics on evaluation progress. According to ECHA, between 2009 and 2024, it checked the compliance of 15,500...more
On February 25, 2025, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report entitled High-Risk Series: Heightened Attention Could Save Billions More and Improve Government Efficiency and Effectiveness,...more
The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) announced on January 21, 2025, that it added five chemicals to the Candidate List of substances of very high concern (SVHC) and updated one entry...more
On January 17, 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its new MyPest tracking system to provide transparency and visibility into the real-time status of pesticide submissions. MyPest is a web-based...more
On January 17, 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the release of the latest Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Inventory. The TSCA Inventory lists all existing chemical substances manufactured,...more
In a development no one could have predicted several weeks ago, the first hearing of the 119th Congress in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce (E&C) focused on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and amendments to...more
The global bulk chemical shipping industry relies on chemical transportation depots to be responsive to market demands by temporarily holding trailers and containers of chemical products en route to their final destinations...more
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) publicly released a report entitled “New Chemicals Program: EPA Needs a Systematic Process to Better Manage and Assess Performance” on January 22, 2025. GAO states that it was...more