January 29, 2019
VIA ELECTRONIC DELIVERY
The Honorable Andrew Wheeler
Acting Administrator and Deputy Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20460
Dear Acting Administrator Wheeler:
We write in response to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Residual Risk and
Technology Assessment (RTR) on Hydrochloric Acid that EPA transmitted to the Office of
Management and Budget with little public notice or congressional notification right before the
holidays on December 20, 2018. As you know, EPA is required to publish RTRs for a variety of
hazards. What is unusual in this specific RTR is that it includes the following language on a
tangentially related chemical, ethylene oxide. Specifically, this RTR included the following
request:
“These elevated risks are largely driven by an EPA risk value that was updated in late
2016. Although this updated risk value is also responsible for the elevated facility-wide
risks calculated here, as noted earlier, these risks are due to emission sources that are not
part of the HCl Production source category. Nevertheless, the EPA is interested in
receiving public comments on the use of [ethylene oxide’s] update[d] risk value for
regulatory purposes.”
The EPA is charged with safeguarding the environment and defending the public health of all
Americans. We are alarmed that hidden inside the 103 page RTR was a troubling information
request that appears to be a transparent invitation for the public—including chemical
industries—to weaken EPA’s forthcoming rules intended to protect Illinoisans and Americans
throughout the Nation from elevated levels of cancer risk resulting from exposure to ethylene
oxide (EtO). EPA has applied a consistent priority scheme to the sources of data it uses for its
rulemakings. If EPA choose not to use its own assessment for determining inhalation risk values,
it would contradict the Agency’s longstanding policy and put many Americans at risk.
Furthermore, if accurate, this would represent an indefensible capitulation by EPA to the
demands of the chemical industry. It is no secret that corporate special interests have been
working to undermine and discredit EPA’s IRIS program, specifically the recent scientific
determination to revise the chemical’s carcinogenicity of EtO to be 50 to 60 times more
carcinogenic based on an improved model.
Since EPA updated the carcinogenic risk value of EtO, the American Chemistry Council (ACC)
has lobbied EPA to withdraw its assessment. The chemical industry appears to be following the

 playbook established by the fossil fuel industry when it sought to undermine climate change
science and by tobacco companies when they attempted to cover up the danger of their products.

These efforts are bolstered by the presence of former employees at the highest levels of EPA.
For example, Nancy Beck, a former lobbyist for ACC and current Deputy Assistant
Administrator of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, has long been a critic of IRIS
program even though program was praised by the National Academy of Science for its
independence from the chemical industry and its systematic review process. Ms. Beck has also
speci?cally criticized ethylene oxide risk assessment.

On behalf of our constituents and communities across the country, we strongly urge you to
publicly commit to at least preserving, if not strengthening, current risk value of 
For several months, our constituents in and around Willowbrook and Lake County, Illinois have
lived in fear that the air they breathe now, and breathed for decades, represents an elevated
cancer risk. Their fears are grounded in the fact that facilities near them emitting a known
carcinogen, had been vented well above levels deemed safe by EPA for decades.

In pursuit of transparency and to provide our constituents with con?dence that EPA is working
for the public good and not private pro?ts, please provide our of?ces with a public commitment
that EPA will defend and preserve the independent IRIS determination assessing the
carcinogenicity of Equally important, we request that you publicly promise to rely on
updated IRIS risk value determination to guide regulatory activities.

Defending the work of dedicated career civil servants by rejecting industry lobbyists?
attempts to weaken these agency professionals? science-based assessments will go a long way
towards increasing con?dence in your leadership. Thank you in advance for your consideration
of our request. If you have any questions about this request, please contact Radha Adhar from the
Of?ce of Senator Duckworth at gov or 202-224-2854.

Richard J. Durbin
United States Senator

Sincerely,

 

Daniel W. Lipin 1 Bradley S. Schneider

United States presentative United States Representative
Bill Foster Sean Casten

United States Representative United States Representative