The EPA would complete its new chemicals oversight faster if it ordered manufacturers to restrain their production and use of the compounds and didn’t negotiate the restraints first, an attorney and former top agency official said Wednesday.
The Environmental Protection Agency for more than 40 years has worked with industry to negotiate “consent orders,” which limit a chemical manufacturer’s production, use, or environmental releases of a new chemical.
But those negotiations can drag out, particularly when the company that wants to make or import a chemical refuses to consent to the agency’s proposed restrictions, said Alexandra Dapolito Dunn, a partner ...