Trump’s EPA wants to weaken formaldehyde protections – this is what it could mean | Trump administration

Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to increase exposure levels to the highly carcinogenic formaldehyde it considers safe. If successful, people would continue to be exposed to worrying amounts of this toxin in thousands of everyday products used throughout the economy, experts and advocates say.

Formaldehyde, a colorless and acrid gas at room temperature, is found in a range of cosmetics, personal care products, household cleaning products, craft supplies, leather goods, furniture, clothing, plastics, building materials and other everyday items. During Joe Biden’s term, EPA scientists took a major step toward controlling broader societal risk by concluding that any level of exposure to formaldehyde can cause cancer, and that very low levels result in non-cancer health harm.

Chemical manufacturers, which typically produce up to 5 billion pounds of formaldehyde annually in the United States, have strongly opposed the findings of Biden-era risk assessments. Industry leaders involved in challenging the EPA’s formaldehyde assessments in recent years were appointed this year by the Trump administration to lead relevant parts of the agency — and now they’re attacking the science from the inside.

The proposed changes represent a scenario that many public health advocates feared if Trump turned the EPA over to industry. Simply put, these changes would maintain industry profits while reducing efforts to better protect citizens’ health.

“When you have chemicals this ubiquitous and this toxic, they really require strong regulations,” said Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, an attorney with Earthjustice who litigates toxic chemical issues. “You really need the government to do its job and provide protections. »

In addition to being a known carcinogen, formaldehyde is linked to respiratory problems, miscarriages and fertility problems.

Facing strong opposition from the chemical industry, Biden’s EPA in January finalized the results of its formaldehyde risk assessment, which informs the development of regulations limiting or banning the substance’s use in consumer goods and the workplace.

Formaldehyde is ubiquitous in consumer goods, in part because it is versatile. Companies add it to cosmetics, personal care products, paints and craft products because it is an effective preservative. It is also commonly added as a binder to composite wood, such as particle board, used to make furniture, cabinets and other household items. Bamboo products, including cutting boards, are often bonded with formaldehyde glue.

The substance is added to clothing or textiles to help prevent mold growth and deterioration, and used in plastics, such as kitchenware, to help products resist heat. Producers of furniture and mattress foam use it as an adhesive or antimicrobial agent.

Since formaldehyde off-gases from the products it is added to, inhaling the chemical is considered the greatest risk. The Biden and Trump teams’ risk assessments focused on inhalation.

The regulations regarding toxic chemicals contain a major flaw in that they do not take into account cumulative exposure to the substances. For example, while regulators consider the risk from formaldehyde in makeup, they do not assess how levels are compounded by formaldehyde that may also be found in an office, in the interior of a car, or in other products that people may also be exposed to during the day.

That’s part of why the Biden EPA’s findings were so important: They would have reduced exposures virtually across the board. Biden’s EPA has identified 58 scenarios in which formaldehyde may pose an “unreasonable risk” to human health, and the Trump administration is rescinding five of them.

The law requires EPA to place restrictions on uses in which the agency determines there is an unreasonable risk. No new restrictions would be put in place for the five scenarios that the Trump administration reversed that Kalmuss-Katz said involved exposure in the industrial workplace.

For the other 53 scenarios in which Biden’s EPA found unreasonable risk, the weakened risk assessment results would lead to weaker restrictions. Among the consumer product scenarios in which the EPA found an unreasonable risk of exposure to formaldehyde are furniture, wood products, and automotive products.

“Any sort of protection is going to be much weaker than it would have been,” said Maria Doa, director of chemicals policy at the Environmental Defense Fund, which advocates for toxic chemicals.

The move is part of a broader effort to weaken risk assessments for toxic chemicals, and the industry has waged a decades-long war against stricter regulations on formaldehyde.

At the heart of the Trump EPA’s reassessments is how the agency’s scientists assess cancer risk. Previously, carcinogens that damaged DNA were considered among the most dangerous, because any exposure poses a cancer risk.

EPA scientists evaluated the chemicals using a “linear” risk assessment, meaning they assume cancer risk down to “zero” exposure to formaldehyde or other carcinogens. This approach has long been the EPA standard and an industry target.

The Trump administration’s new approach sets a threshold at which exposure is considered a risk. Any exposure level below this threshold is considered safe. In short, the exposure levels that are now considered a cancer risk will not be if the changes are approved.

The EPA and its Office of Chemical Safety are led by two former leaders of the American Chemistry Council, a trade group that represents nearly 200 of the nation’s largest chemical manufacturers and which welcomed the agency’s new position.

Nancy Beck is now EPA’s deputy assistant administrator, while Lynn Dekleva is deputy assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. As recently as 2022, Dekleva helped lead the attacks on the EPA’s findings on formaldehyde that she is now working to undo from within. The EPA defended Dekleva and Beck’s involvement in the new risk assessments, insisting they followed federal ethics rules.

The proposed change goes against the science of the federal government and independent researchers who have reached broad consensus on the risks of formaldehyde. The proposal also follows the usual industry playbook in asserting that there is no consensus on the risks.

Doa, of the Environmental Defense Fund, said the new risk assessment was “cherry-picked” to reach its conclusions, but legal action could not be taken until the regulatory process was complete. “What they are doing is scientifically horrible and incorrect,” Doa added. “That’s so cheeky.”