Delayed Formaldehyde Critique by Science Advisers Set to Begin

An EPA analysis of formaldehyde, which is used to make hundreds of industrial and consumer products, will begin to get a long-delayed critique by independent scientists on Wednesday.

A panel of scientists convened by the nation’s top science adviser, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, will hold its first meeting to review a revised formaldehyde assessment the Environmental Protection Agency released in April. The National Academies’ rigorous reviews often take more than a year to complete.

Long-term exposures to small amounts of formaldehyde increase the risk of rare head and neck tumors, leukemia, and other adverse health effects, according to the EPA.

The information about formaldehyde, if finalized, will be used by EPA and state regulators to set air emissions limits, decide whether uses of the chemical must be controlled, and make other decisions that affect companies’ bottom lines and human health.

A flawed assessment could lead to overly restrictive regulations that could harm the supply chain and consumers and producers needing housing, wood products, and other goods, Sahar Osman-Sypher, senior director for the American Chemistry Council’s Formaldehyde Panel, said. Products that are based on formaldehyde technologies supported 961,000 jobs and $506 billion in sales in 2021, she said by email.

Between 1 billion and 5 billion pounds of formaldehyde have been produced in or imported into the US in recent years by chemical manufacturers including Koch Industries Inc.; Hexion Holdings Corp., and the Celanese Corp., according to information companies provided the EPA in 2020.

The EPA’s analysis and the science advisory body’s review is welcomed by environmental health groups while industry groups and some congressional Republicans have criticized the agency’s conclusions as unscientific. The analysis and the academies’ procedures are fundamentally flawed through bias and other problems, the American Chemistry Council has said.

Launched in 1997

The EPA began to review the chemical in 1997 and has never finished.

Part of the reason for the stalemate is that formaldehyde is an important “building block” chemical used to produce building materials, flooring, medical devices, automobiles, and other products. In homes it’s found in composite wood products such as hardwood plywood, glues, and more, the EPA has said.

Groups opposed to any future controls on formaldehyde point out that it also is produced in nature through plant, animal, bacterial, and human metabolism.

EPA’s political leadership stalled the completion of the formaldehyde review during the Trump administration, a Government Accountability Office report concluded in 2019.

“There have actually been chemical industry and congressional efforts to stall the publication of this report now for more than a decade,” Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), who now chairs the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, said during a 2019 oversight hearing.

But the EPA’s failure to clearly explain its reasoning for making similar conclusions about formaldehyde’s health effects more than a decade ago prompted a National Academies committee in 2011 to blast that report and the process used to create it.

The agency has since revamped the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program that examines the heath hazards of chemicals and the amounts of the chemicals that could trigger harm. And the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine have praised the agency’s changes.

But the American Chemistry Council, Louisiana Chemical Association, Independent Lubricant Manufacturers Association (ILMA), and Republican House members Mike Carey (Ohio), Robert E. Latta (Ohio), David P. Joyce (Ohio), and Bruce Westerman (Ark.) say scientific inaccuracies in the agency’s analysis and flawed procedures fundamentally undermine the document’s potential usefulness.