A trade group representing the American chemical industry has filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration for policies that target formaldehyde. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) filed the action against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), accusing the federal agency of numerous violations of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).
FACA requires independent peer review while assessing chemicals, and ACC alleges that a draft formaldehyde assessment published in 2022 failed to “follow the law and basic standards for scientific integrity, independent peer review, and governmental transparency.” The organization adds, “Decades of scientific data support a safe level of formaldehyde exposure at current regulatory levels.”
The complaint also alleges “improper EPA influence” over the publication.
The document in question was published last April and links tiny doses of formaldehyde to cancers and other health problems. If the draft is finalized, formaldehyde will be officially designated as carcinogenic for the first time. The ACC argues, however, that formaldehyde is safe and is an essential ingredient in “lifesaving medical devices, vaccines and antimicrobial” as well as “sustainable wood products, agriculture, and electric vehicles.”
According to one assessment, if the EPA were to restrict the use of low-dose formaldehyde, it could lead to the loss of a million jobs and cut economic activity worth billions of dollars.
The Biden administration has come under fire in the recent past for failing to consider the economic fallout of environmental protection policies. In May, following the publication of an EPA report that called for restrictions on the use of some chemicals, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) commissioned a study to assess the economic cost. The study found that the policy would threaten hundreds of thousands of jobs and force manufacturing offshore, thereby leading to costly imports and a detrimental environmental impact.
NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons said, “We need to let manufacturers do what they do best: innovate and deploy modern technologies to protect the environment while creating jobs and strengthening the economy.”
