EPA Violated Chemicals Law With Job Safety Premise, States Argue

The EPA violated the nation’s toxic chemicals law by presuming industrial workers who handle methylene chloride would have personal protective equipment at their disposal, a dozen states and New York City argued in court papers.

That assumption is prohibited under the 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act amendments, so the Environmental Protection Agency can’t consider it when determining how to regulate methylene chloride, a coalition of 12 attorneys general and the city of New York’s corporate counsel wrote in an opening brief filed Monday in the the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The states and cities, joined separately ...