The News
The Biden-Harris administration said Wednesday that it was taking its first steps toward potentially regulating vinyl chloride, a versatile yet cancerous and flammable chemical used widely to make plastic for PVC pipes and packaging.
Experts and environmental groups had been urging the federal government to more stringently regulate the chemical after a train shipment of it derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, last year, prompting officials to perform a large controlled burn that sent a black cloud of smoke over the surrounding area, raising health concerns.
Why It Matters: Numerous health and safety concerns.
Tougher rules or a ban on vinyl chloride would address a host of health and safety concerns: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has classified vinyl chloride as a known human carcinogen, and the chemical is highly flammable and potentially explosive.
Safety experts had also raised concerns over the transport of vinyl chloride across long distances on accident-prone freight trains. The more than 100,000-gallon vinyl chloride shipment that burned in Ohio was on a 1,600-mile journey from a chemicals plant just outside Houston, Texas, to a PVC flooring plant in Pedricktown, N.J.
But tougher regulations would also upend the market for a type of plastic used widely in electrical wiring and cables, blood storage bags and other medical devices, packaging and household goods like shower curtains and raincoats, and PVC pipes for drinking water.
What’s More: JD Vance on the disaster in his state.
JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, had just been elected as the junior senator for Ohio when the East Palestine disaster struck. He has since pushed for improvements in railroad safety, and for more compensation and health screening for affected local communities.
“I think that we still have a number of residents who are worried about air quality, water quality, and so forth, and they have every right to be worried about it,” he said this year at a media briefing in East Palestine.
The presidential candidates have spoken less about chemical regulation, and the Trump administration rolled back more than 100 environmental and safety rules. The Trump campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.
What’s Next: Formal studies would take years.
Any regulations are still several years away. The specific action the Environmental Protection Agency announced on Wednesday was to designate vinyl chloride, along with four other chemicals all used to make plastic, as “high-priority substances” under the Toxic Substances Control Act, the nation’s chemical safety law.
If the agency finalizes those designations, it will start a formal study to evaluate whether the chemicals present an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment. The agency will have about 3 years to complete that assessment, and rule-making would come after that.
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