EPA bans widely used chemicals linked to cancer before Trump takes office

The US Environmental Protection Agency has banned perc and TCE, toxic chemicals that are widely used in everyday products but strongly linked to cancer and other serious health problems.

The move comes after the first Donald Trump administration killed the process to limit the chemicals’ uses, but the bans make it difficult for the second Trump administration to undo the rules.

The chemicals are commonly used in dry cleaning, carpet cleaning, hoof polishes, brake cleaners, adhesives, pepper spray and lubricants.

“After decades of workers and communities across the country sounding the alarm about the devastating health effects they’ve experienced, we are glad to see that EPA has finally banned these dangerous chemicals,” said Liz Hitchcock, director of federal policy for the Toxic-Free Future advocacy group.

TCE, or trichloroethylene, is linked to male reproductive damage, liver disease, kidney disease, neurological damage, and Parkinson’s disease. It has particularly been a problem for those living near air force bases or civilian airports because it is widely employed as an industrial degreaser.

The chemical can percolate into groundwater used as drinking water sources, and officials suspect TCE water contamination is behind multiple cancer clusters, and sickening and killing service members at bases across the US. Many areas with TCE contamination are designated Superfund sites, which is reserved for the nation’s most polluted locations. The EPA found TCE presents an “unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment” in 52 of 54 uses in industrial and consumer products.

Still, about 250m lbs of the chemical are produced annually and added to consumer products – most of it ends up in water.

Perc, or perchloroethylene, is linked to similar health problems, including kidney disease, liver damage, memory loss and decreased immune function. It’s also thought to cause liver, kidney, brain and testicular cancers.

Perc is also used as a degreasing, lubricant and adhesive agent in manufacturing, and has also been widely found in drinking water. It can also emit a gas through soil that poisons the air inside buildings above it.

Public health advocates have targeted the chemicals for decades. The Obama administration proposed strong limits on TCE’s use in 2016, but the Trump administration undid those in 2017. The Biden administration went even further than the Obama EPA by banning the substances, a step the agency rarely takes when regulating toxic chemicals.

Trump has claimed his new administration will clean up the nation’s water and address toxic chemicals, but he also appears poised to gut the EPA, while his allies are already targeting limits put in place for other chemicals, like PFAS. His allies at the American Chemistry Council said the ban on TCE is “inconsistent with the underlying science” and charged that the EPA’s studies were not “realistic”.

The ban would take around four years to undo, making it difficult for the Trump administration to reverse.

The chemicals’ use also highlights a fundamental problem in the chemical industry: safer and commercially viable alternatives exist for most perc and TCE uses, but chemical makers still insist on producing the more toxic products.