Hundreds Of New Chemicals Await EPA Approval While American Manufacturers Look Abroad

Hundreds of new chemicals await Environmental Protection Agency approval while manufacturers say delays push production overseas.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had 421 new chemical notices pending on Sept. 1 and must review each within 90 days, according to agency statistics. Congress extended the EPA’s authority to collect fees from chemical makers through Dec. 11 in the spending law President Donald Trump signed Sept. 2, the enacted text states.

The EPA listed 11 submissions for battery components or materials as received and under review in Federal Register notices it published July 28 and issued Aug. 27, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation analysis of the notices. The same documents list two heat transfer fluids, a chemical for electronic component manufacturing and an ingredient of photoresist, a coating used to make computer chips.

One company chose to manufacture an advanced cooling chemical for semiconductor chips in France because of delays in the U.S. review process, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), a trade group for chemical manufacturers, said in a statement to the DCNF. The council did not name the company.

“In practical terms, when a new chemical remains under EPA review for more than a year past its statutory deadline, a manufacturer cannot confidently commercialize it, scale production, or make the long-term investments needed to bring it to market,” the ACC told the DCNF. “Their customers must continue using existing materials or potentially wait longer for other alternatives.”

The proposals in Congress to change the review process remain discussion drafts. The House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee each released a draft this year that would reauthorize the fees, and neither had been formally introduced as of March, according to the law firm Wiley.

The ACC supports reauthorizing the fees and pairing that step with changes that make reviews “more timely, transparent, predictable, and grounded in the best available science,” the council told the DCNF in response to questions about Congressional legislation.

“This is not an argument for weaker reviews,” the ACC said. “Safety and timely, science-based decisions can and should go together.”

Most companies behind the battery submissions claimed their names as confidential business information, the notices show. Those identified include Quino Energy, which is seeking approval for an electrolyte that stores electrical energy.