Biden-Harris Administration Announces Final Rule for Carbon Tetrachloride to Protect Workers

Biden-Harris Administration Announces Final Rule for Carbon Tetrachloride to Protect Workers

December 11, 2024

WASHINGTON - Today, Dec. 11, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule to protect workers from exposure to carbon tetrachloride (CTC), a chemical known to be toxic to the liver and cause liver cancer, brain tumors and adrenal gland tumors. This final rule will protect people from these risks through the requirement of robust worker safety programs and banning some uses. This risk management rule aligns with President Biden's Cancer Moonshot, a whole-of-government approach to end cancer as we know it. This is the fifth risk management rule to be finalized using the process created by the bipartisan 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) amendments, marking another major milestone for chemical safety since President Biden took office after decades of inadequate protections and serious delays.

"With this action, we're ensuring that the chemicals we need to power our economy are used safely," said Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Michal Freedhoff. "This rule puts necessary protections in place for workers, while also ensuring that important uses of this chemical can continue safely without unreasonable risk."

"President Biden has championed actions that reduce Americans' exposure to known cancer-causing toxins, so that we can prevent more cancers before they start," said Deputy Assistant to the President for the Cancer Moonshot Danielle Carnival. "Today's announcement is a win for American workers. Thanks to protections like this one, many families will never have to face a cancer diagnosis."

CTC is a solvent used in commercial settings as a raw material for producing other chemicals like those used in refrigerants, aerosol propellants and foam-blowing agents. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission banned the use of CTC in consumer products in 1970.

Requirements under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (Montreal Protocol) and the Clean Air Act phased out CTC production in the United States in 1996 for most domestic uses that did not involve manufacturing other chemicals.

The continued, safe use of CTC in the manufacture of low global warming potential chemicals used in refrigerants, aerosol propellants and foam-blowing agents is particularly important in the agency's efforts to support the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020 (AIM Act) and the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol.

Today's final rule closes the door on discontinued uses of CTC that EPA found present unreasonable risk, like for metal recovery and as an additive in fuel and plastic components used in the automotive industry. For most uses that continue, the rule requires measures to ensure workers are protected. Some uses prohibited by the proposed rule will be allowed to continue under the final rule, because public comments and supporting information demonstrated both that the uses were ongoing and that the workplace protections could be implemented. Uses of CTC allowed to continue under the Workplace Chemical Protection Program (which includes inhalation exposure limits and dermal protections) include:

• Incorporation into formulation, mixture or reaction products in agricultural products manufacturing, vinyl chloride manufacturing (originally proposed to be prohibited), and other basic organic and inorganic chemical manufacturing.
• Repackaging for use as a laboratory chemical.
• Use as a processing aid to manufacture agricultural products.
• Use as a processing aid to manufacture vinyl chloride (originally proposed to be prohibited).
• Use in the elimination of nitrogen trichloride in the production of chlorine and caustic soda and the recovery of chlorine in tail gas from the production of chlorine.
• Import, recycling, disposal and domestic manufacture of CTC.
• Processing as a reactant in the production of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs) and perchloroethylene (PCE).

In response to public comments on the proposed rule, companies now have 36 months instead of 12 months to fully implement the Workplace Chemical Protection Program, which provides sufficient time to refine test methods to measure the new inhalation exposure limits. Laboratory use of CTC will still require prescriptive workplace controls, but those controls are now better aligned with current Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards in the final rule.

The final rule also requires owners and operators to attest that engineering controls selected to comply with the rule's inhalation exposure limits do not increase emissions of CTC to ambient air outside of the facility. This, along with existing National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAPs) for CTC under the Clean Air Act, helps to protect fenceline communities from increased exposure to CTC by prohibiting workplaces from simply ventilating more of the chemical outside of the workplace in order to meet their indoor inhalation exposure limits.

Please visit the Risk Management for Carbon Tetrachloride webpage for more information.