The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized the latest risk management rules for trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE) under the bipartisan 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) amendments, marking another major milestone for chemical safety after decades of inadequate protections and serious delays. These protections align with President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot, a whole-of-government approach to end cancer as we know it.
TCE is an extremely toxic chemical known to cause liver cancer, kidney cancer, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. TCE also causes damage to the central nervous system, liver, kidneys, immune system, reproductive organs, and fetal heart defects. These risks are present even at very small concentrations. Under today’s rule, all uses of TCE will be banned over time (with the vast majority of identified risks eliminated within one year), and safer alternatives are readily available for the majority of uses.
PCE is known to cause liver, kidney, brain and testicular cancer, as well as damage to the kidney, liver and immune system, neurotoxicity, and reproductive toxicity. Today’s final rule will better protect people from these risks by banning manufacture, processing and distribution in commerce of PCE for all consumer uses and many commercial uses, while allowing some workplace uses to continue only where robust workplace controls can be implemented.
“It’s simply unacceptable to continue to allow cancer-causing chemicals to be used for things like glue, dry cleaning or stain removers when safer alternatives exist,” said Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Michal Freedhoff. “These rules are grounded in the best-available science that demonstrates the harmful impacts of PCE and TCE. EPA continues to deliver on actions that protect people, including workers and children, under the nation’s premier bipartisan chemical safety law.”
PCE and TCE are both nonflammable chlorinated solvents that are volatile organic compounds. PCE can biodegrade into TCE, and PCE may contain trace amounts of TCE as an impurity or a contaminant. The chemicals can often serve as alternatives for each other. For several uses of TCE that will be totally prohibited, there is an analogous use of PCE that can continue safely in perpetuity under workplace controls. Some examples of uses that will be prohibited under the TCE rule, but will continue under the PCE rule include: industrial and commercial use as an energized electrical cleaner, in laboratory use for asphalt testing and recovery, use to make refrigerants and other chemicals, and for vapor degreasing.
“Over 40 years ago, a mother named Anne Anderson from Woburn, Massachusetts, approached me and started a crusade to keep any more children like Jimmy Anderson, her son, from dying from cancer caused by toxic chemicals. Anne’s work directly led to this announcement from the Environmental Protection Agency that I am overjoyed to celebrate today alongside her and every community that stands to benefit—a finalized ban on trichloroethylene and most uses of perchloroethylene, two chemicals that cause cancer, affect reproductive systems, are neurotoxic, and compromise immune systems,” said Senator Ed Markey (D-MA). “Despite their dangers, these chemicals could still be found in industries like dry cleaning, automotive repair and manufacturing. With no doubt that these chemicals are deadly, there is no doubt that this final rule will save lives—especially our children’s lives—around the country.”
“The Camp Lejeune contaminated drinking water issue has dragged on over the better part of forty years ever since TCE, PCE and other organic solvents were first documented in the base’s drinking water supply in October 1980,” said Jerry M. Ensminger, Retired U.S. Marine Corps Master Sergeant. “My daughter, Janey, was conceived aboard Camp Lejeune during the drinking water contamination and died of leukemia in 1985, at the age of nine. I first began my fight for justice in 1997, and was later joined by Mike Partain in 2007, who was also conceived aboard the base and diagnosed with male breast cancer at the age of 39. Mike and I welcome this ban on TCE by the EPA and this is proof that our fight for justice at Camp Lejeune was not in vain.”
Trichloroethylene
TCE is used as a solvent in consumer and commercial products such as cleaning and furniture care products, degreasers, brake cleaners, sealants, lubricants, adhesives, paints and coatings, arts and crafts spray coatings, and is also used in the manufacture of some refrigerants. Safer alternatives are readily available for the majority of these uses.
EPA is finalizing its prohibition on all uses of TCE, most of which will be prohibited within one year, including TCE manufacture and processing for most commercial and all consumer products. This will protect most people who are likely to be exposed to TCE from uses covered by TSCA, including all consumers and workers in many sectors and many communities.
A limited number of uses in the workplace will be phased out over a longer period. Those uses will only continue with required stringent worker protections in place. All TCE uses with longer phaseout timeframes will have worker safety requirements, such as a Workplace Chemical Protection Plan that includes an inhalation exposure limit. The final rule sets a different inhalation exposure limit for airborne TCE than was proposed. This change was made in response to public comments to ensure the limit is feasible to implement and monitor while still reducing risk. EPA estimates that the new inhalation exposure limit would reduce long-term workplace exposure by 97%.
Many of the TCE uses that are continuing for longer than one year occur in highly industrialized settings that can adopt EPA’s new stringent worker protections, such as uses of TCE to clean parts used in aircraft and medical devices, to manufacture battery separators, to manufacture refrigerants, as well as in other transportation, security and defense systems.
For the use of TCE in manufacturing refrigerants, the longer timeframe supports fighting climate change by complementing efforts to phase down climate-damaging hydrofluorocarbons under the bipartisan American Innovation and Manufacturing Act.
All of these uses ultimately will be prohibited, but some of the exemptions associated with longer timeframes are necessary to avoid impacts to national security or critical infrastructure. In addition, some of the timeframes have been adjusted from the proposed rule based on public comment to allow reasonable time for transitioning to alternatives.
Further, to support cleanup activities at sites of past TCE contamination (e.g., Superfund sites), EPA is allowing essential laboratory use and proper disposal of TCE wastewater to continue for 50 years provided worker protections are in place, including the inhalation exposure limit set by today’s rule.
