EPA Tightens Stance on Confidentiality Claims for Chemical Identities

Michael Boucher says the new policy isn't controversial as it is limited to chemical identities that have already been disclosed elsewhere. However, when he initially saw EPA's January 21 press release on the new move, he briefly thought the agency was announcing a policy that could affect chemical identity confidential business information (CBI) claims in premanufacture notices, which companies do to keep trade secrets from competitors.

"That's not what they're doing at all," he tells Pesticide & Toxic Chemical News.

Boucher says he can't think of a time when his clients wanted to claim the chemical identity CBI in a 8(e) filing when it was already on the public inventory.

"I don't know who's doing this," he says, adding that he isn't sure why EPA allowed such claims in the past unless it was a matter of expending the resources to review them.

Sometimes a company wants to distance itself from a chemical, Boucher notes, but instead of claiming the chemical identity CBI, it can claim its own indent as confidential. But again, Boucher notes that in his experiences, that is only done when that information isn't public elsewhere.

This article appeared in its entirety in the January 25, 2010 edition of Pesticide & Toxic Chemical News.