Virus spurs calls for EPA to delay industrial solvent review

摘要

Health advocates are pushing EPA to postpone a meeting to review the agency's report on an industrial solvent because of concerns about the new coronavirus. While EPA has already moved the peer review of its draft report on trichloroethylene, or TCE, to a virtual meeting, advocates at the Environmental Defense Fund argue that some members of the committee are part of the health care workforce and are responding to COVID-19 or are taking care of their families. "The virtual meeting is being planned because a number of reviewers are now under various travel restrictions," an EPA spokesperson said. "All of these scenarios relate to the concern for the virus." Richard Denison, EDF's lead senior scientist, wrote that the public does not have enough time to look over the TCE review, which is hundreds of pages long, and it's an unnecessary burden to ask Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals members to spend hours reviewing EPA's assessment of TCE during a pandemic. "While traveling to a meeting next week should of course be off the table, proceeding with a virtual meeting at this point is asking far too much of SACC members and their families and will clearly lead to a severely compromised peer review," he said. TCE is primarily used to make hydrofluorocarbon chemicals, such as refrigerants, and as a solvent to remove grease from metal.