WASHINGTON, D.C. — In Case You Missed It, U.S. Senators Tom Carper (D-Del.), Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), Senate Majority Whip, and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), along with Representative Brad Schneider (D-Ill.-10), Chair of the Ethylene Oxide (EtO) Task Force, led 9 senators and 31 House members in a letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael S. Regan supporting the agency’s proposed EtO sterilizers rule, which would reduce EtO emissions from commercial EtO sterilization facilities by 80 percent once implemented.

Chairman Carper applauded the Biden administration when it announced the proposed EtO standards on April 11, 2023. To ensure that communities are fully protected, Senator Carper and his colleagues are advocating for additional measures in the final rule, including fence-line monitoring at sterilization facilities, coverage of off-site warehouses where sterilized equipment is stored, and an expedited compliance timeline to reduce dangerous emissions as quickly as possible.

The lawmakers wrote: “We all welcome the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recently proposed Clean Air Act rule strengthening emissions monitoring and control requirements at EtO sterilization facilities … We especially commend EPA for putting public health at the forefront of its considerations by conducting a residual risk review to support the proposal ... We also appreciate EPA’s efforts to engage affected communities as it developed the proposed rule, and we urge EPA to make community engagement a core component of its process as it finalizes and implements the rule.”

They continued: “Given strong evidence that fence-line monitoring is a proven method for verifying the effectiveness of emission control equipment and detecting fugitive emissions, we encourage you to include requirements for fence-line monitoring in the final rule … We ask that you clarify in the final rule whether offsite storage warehouses are covered facilities, and ask that the agency explore all regulatory options for addressing emissions from these facilities … Given the dangerous risk EtO exposure continues to present to communities, we urge EPA to consider adopting a shorter compliance timeline in the final rule.”

The full text of the letter is available here.