EPA and OSHA to Strengthen Efforts on Chemical Safety to Better Protect Workers

Released January 13, 2025

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of the U.S. Department of Labor have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) formalizing their coordination on EPA’s work to assess and manage existing chemicals under section 6 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). EPA and OSHA anticipate that better coordination under this MOU will result in improved workplace health and safety protections for workers using existing chemical substances under TSCA and the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act and allow for effective implementation of our national workplace and environmental protection statutes.

Continuing the existing collaboration between EPA and OSHA on workplace exposures as part of EPA’s prioritization, risk evaluation, and risk management of existing chemicals, this MOU will further facilitate information sharing in the form of notification, consultation, and coordination where appropriate. EPA and OSHA will share information on:

• TSCA section 6 prioritization, risk evaluation, rulemaking and implementation efforts as it pertains to chemical hazards in the workplace.
• Outreach and communication materials for stakeholders about EPA rules and OSHA requirements, including TSCA section 6 and OSHA rules that regulate the same chemical hazards.
• Inspections and enforcement activity such as each agency’s areas of focus, complaints, inspections and potential violations where mutual interest exists.
• Protocols to ensure that confidential information is being properly exchanged between the agencies when carrying out law enforcement actions or otherwise protecting health or the environment.

In the 1970s, the White House Council on Environmental Quality and EPA officials raised serious concerns about the health impacts of vinyl chloride, particularly on workers. These concerns were the impetus for Congress to write the “original TSCA” law in 1976 to ensure chemicals were made and used safely. The original TSCA contemplated EPA coordination with OSHA, and the ability of EPA to address chemical risks to workers. EPA wrote several worker-focused rules before TSCA was amended in 2016, including the Asbestos Worker Protection Rule, which extends the protection of the OSHA asbestos standards to those state and local government employees not covered by an OSHA-approved state plan. EPA restricted the use of some metalworking fluids in 1984 specifically to protect workers from cancer risks under TSCA. The 2016 amendments to TSCA expanded EPA’s authority and responsibility to protect workers. It requires EPA to consider potentially exposed and susceptible subpopulations in chemical risk evaluations, a category that explicitly includes workers.

EPA and OSHA together have the statutory responsibility to ensure the safety and health of the public and the nation’s workforce through the timely and effective implementation of federal laws and regulations, including TSCA and the OSH Act. The standards for chemical hazards that OSHA promulgates under the OSH Act and that EPA promulgates under section 6(a) of TSCA share a broadly similar purpose, and the control measures OSHA and EPA require to satisfy the objectives of their respective statutes may overlap or coincide.

However, and importantly, TSCA differs from the OSH Act in several respects including jurisdiction: TSCA regulates the use of chemicals more broadly while the OSH Act regulates health and safety in the workplace. TSCA also covers a wider range of workers that are not covered under the OSH Act, such as volunteers, self-employed workers, and some state and local government workers. Therefore, EPA’s findings and occupational risk mitigations may differ from OSHA’s. For example, while OSHA has set regulatory exposure limits for some chemicals, the majority of the limits were set shortly after the adoption of the OSH Act in 1970. By contrast, EPA’s exposure limits established as part of current risk management rules are derived from current scientific review.

Requirements set under TSCA must use the best available science to address unreasonable risk – identified without consideration of cost or other non-risk factors; whereas standards set under the OSH Act are constrained by requirements that OSHA prove proposed controls are economically and technically feasible. Although EPA considers non-risk factors such as the effect on the national economy and technological innovation when weighing options sufficient to address the unreasonable risk under TSCA, the differences in statutory authorities can also lead to differences between the two agencies’ regulatory approaches.

This MOU affirms EPA and OSHA’s pledge to collaborate to protect workers and the public from chemical risk.

View the MOU between EPA and OSHA on coordination under TSCA section 6