The Environmental Protection Agency announced this week that it will push back the deadline for reporting unpublished health and safety data for 16 toxic chemicals — some of which are linked to cancer or developmental problems in babies — used in everyday products and manufacturing. The move signals a shift from the Biden administration’s approach to regulating harmful chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), a sweeping law aimed at protecting public health.

In December, the Biden administration finalized a rule requiring manufacturers and importers of the chemicals to submit the unpublished data to the EPA by March 13. The Trump administration initially pushed the deadline back by several months and has now extended it to May 22, 2026.

The internal company health studies are meant to “help inform EPA’s prioritization, risk evaluation, and risk management of chemicals under TSCA,” the agency said in its Monday announcement.

Advertisement

“The Trump EPA will continue to advance its core mission of protecting human health and the environment while implementing President Trump’s agenda and Administrator Zeldin’s Powering the Great American Comeback initiative,” EPA press secretary Brigit Hirsch said in an email.

Here’s what you need to know about the EPA’s decision to extend the deadline.

What is the Toxic Substances Control Act?

The law aims to protect people and the environment from toxic chemicals. In 2016, Congress passed an overhaul of the 1976 law to improve the agency’s ability to regulate chemicals and limit the public’s exposure to harmful substances.

Before the overhaul, which received broad bipartisan support, the law gave the EPA only limited powers to regulate toxic chemicals. The agency had to prove that a chemical was potentially harmful before it demanded testing, and new substances could automatically enter the marketplace after 90 days. Individual states, concerned that federal regulations were too weak, had been implementing more stringent rules, leading manufacturers to lobby for a more uniform regulatory framework.

Advertisement

The 2016 update empowered the EPA to require companies to test their products and report the results to the agency, though states retained the right to request waivers to set their own standards for particular chemicals.

What’s at stake with the new deadline?

According to the EPA, the extension for reporting the safety information will allow the agency time to craft guidance based on objections raised by industry.

The move was welcomed by industry groups.

“This extension is essential to allow EPA to provide guidance to manufacturers and importers to support submission of required data and protect confidential business information,” the American Chemistry Council, a trade group, said in a statement.

But environmental experts say the delay could lengthen the risk evaluation process and stall future decisions that could limit exposures to harmful chemicals and require new protective measures for workers.

Advertisement

“The entire purpose of the reporting rule was to generate timely information about chemicals that EPA has selected or proposed for risk evaluation,” said Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, a senior attorney at the advocacy group Earthjustice. “Delayed reporting deprives EPA scientists of the information they need to conduct those evaluations, increasing the likelihood that serious health risks are overlooked and left unaddressed.”

What kind of chemicals are on the list?

The chemicals on the list appear in a wide variety of industrial settings and consumer products and include those used to repel moths, such as naphthalene, and styrene, a sweet-smelling liquid used to manufacture plastic and rubber products.

Benzene, a known human carcinogen, is one of the most commonly used chemicals in the United States and is found in consumer products such as gasoline, adhesives, cleaners and paints. Bisphenol-A (BPA), ethylbenzene and vinyl chloride are used in the production of plastic products and consumer goods. Other chemicals, such as 6PPD, are used to improve the durability of tires and other rubber products.

Advertisement

The EPA had already started evaluating the risks posed by five of the 16 chemicals on the list. Another five were beginning the TSCA review process, and the remaining six had been identified by agency scientists as candidates for future review.

While the industry now has more time to collect and report internal safety and risk assessments of the chemicals, environmental health advocates worry the general public will continue to be exposed to unnecessary chemical hazards.

“This extension invites industry to withhold existing studies from federal regulators and makes it harder for EPA scientists to protect children, workers, and fenceline community residents from highly toxic substances,” Kalmuss-Katz said. The administration, he added, “would prefer not to know about the harms associated with chemicals that it is legally required to evaluate.”

What happens next?

When the EPA first sought public comment on the proposed rule, industry officials objected that the new requirements were overly broad, too costly to implement, imposed an unreasonable burden on companies and were not scientifically justified. They singled out the requirement to report raw environmental and occupational monitoring data, saying such unfiltered information would be too expensive to report and would not be useful for regulators.

Advertisement

Supporters of the rule acknowledged that it would impose additional costs on manufacturers but noted that the requirements were similar to other EPA regulations and that public health benefits and health-care savings would far outweigh the burden on industry.

Environmental advocates see the extension as an example of deregulation by delay and worry that it sets the tone for how the Trump administration will approach toxic chemicals in the future.

Daniel Rosenberg, a senior attorney and director of federal toxics policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group, said the year-long delay is an “ominous sign that they won’t hold the industry accountable for anything” and “will result in virtually no regulation of toxic chemicals.”