The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has finalized the latest risk management rules for trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE) under the bipartisan 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) amendments.
Under the new 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. It also will ban 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,” says 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.
“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,” says 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.”
Read more about the two chemicals and the EPA's new rule here.
The EPA will host a public webinar to explain what is in the PCE final rule and how it will be implemented on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Registration is available on the Final Regulation of Perchloroethylene under TSCA webinar page.
