The Nickel Report

On September 15, 2026, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated the US Environmental Protection Agency’s risk management rule for methylene chloride, a widely used solvent, under the Toxic Substances Control Act. East Fork Enterprises, Inc. v. EPA, Nos. 24-60227 & 24-60256 (5th Cir. 2026). The rule prohibited 40 uses of methylene chloride and imposed numerous workplace requirements on the remaining 13 industrial and commercial uses, including exposure monitoring and an existing chemical exposure limit roughly ten times more stringent than OSHA’s standards. After a ten-year process of EPA evaluating extensive data on methylene chloride, publishing and then revising a determination that the substance presents an unreasonable risk to human health, and imposing bans on a majority of uses of the substance, including industrial uses and uses in finished products, the Fifth Circuit scrapped the rule, finding EPA exceeded its statutory authority and lacked sufficient evidence to support its rule.

In late February 2023, EPA released for public comment its Draft Proposed Principles of Cumulative Risk Assessment under the Toxic Substances Control Act (“Draft Principles”), which proposes a set of principles for evaluating cumulative risks for chemicals undergoing risk evaluation under the Toxic Substances Control Act (“TSCA”). In conjunction with the Draft Principles, EPA also released its “Draft Proposed Approach for Cumulative Risk Assessment of High-Priority Phthalates and a Manufacturer Requested Phthalate Under the Toxic Substances Control Act,” (“Draft Proposed Phthalates Cumulative Risk Approach”), an approach for applying these Draft Principles to the evaluation of cumulative risks posed by certain phthalates undergoing TSCA risk evaluations. EPA referred to these documents as the “first steps” towards the Agency conducting cumulative risk assessments under TSCA.