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Apr. 2 – Chromium Wars, The Sequel (Hexavalent Chromium)

A piece in Forbes magazine discusses the recent controversy around hexavalent chromium:

Last month, when the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued final standards for exposure to the carcinogenic chemical hexavalent chromium–the substance made infamous by the movie Erin Brockovich–industry yelped about the almost $300 million-per-year cost. But it could have been a lot worse. The original rules OSHA proposed in 2004 were far tougher and would have cost ten times as much.

Now, however, the chromium industry faces a new risk: The Environmental Protection Agency has asked for documents that could lead it to investigate the chromium industry for withholding from the government a key study supporting a stricter standard for the potentially deadly metal, a person familiar with the EPA inquiry told Forbes.

Specifically, the EPA is considering filing suit under the Toxic Substances Control Act, which requires companies to report new substantial risk information about chemicals to the government in a timely manner. There’s a precedent here: Last December, DuPont agreed to pay $10.3 million–the largest civil administrative fine in EPA history–to settle claims it had failed to report data relating to a component of Teflon.

See the full article: Forbes.com.

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