"Federal regulators are giving chemical manufacturers and petroleum refiners more time to provide data on a group of chemicals that have been linked to human health harms as officials consider tighter regulations.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) extended the deadline one year for compliance with the Health and Safety Data Reporting Rule to May 2027 saying the extension is necessary to provide “regulatory certainty.” The agency said it will use the extension to determine whether to revise the rule, partly due to “legitimate concerns” raised by industry groups regarding the rule’s cost and scope.
Passed in 2024, the rule requires industry to send the EPA any unpublished safety and health data that they have on 16 chemicals that the agency is considering more tightly regulating due to concerns about environmental and human health risks. The chemicals include common plastic additives bisphenol A (BPA) and vinyl chloride, as well as oil refining chemicals benzene and naphthalene.
The deadline extension was widely criticized by health and environmental groups who said companies simply have to turn over existing health and safety studies that they already have, and warned that delaying these submissions denies people information about chemicals they are frequently exposed to. "
