Trump’s EPA wants to weaken formaldehyde protections – this is what it could mean

Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to increase the levels of exposure to highly carcinogenic formaldehyde it considers safe. If successful, people would continue to be exposed to concerning amounts of the toxin in thousands of everyday products used across the economy, experts and advocates say.

Formaldehyde, a pungent colorless gas at room temperature, is found in a range of cosmetics, personal care products, home cleaners, craft supplies, leather goods, furniture, clothing, plastic, building materials and other everyday goods. During Joe Biden’s term, EPA scientists took a major step toward reining in the broad societal risk by issuing a finding that any level of exposure to formaldehyde can cause cancer, and very low levels cause non-cancer health harms.

Chemical makers, who typically produce up to 5bn pounds of formaldehyde annually in the US, strongly opposed the Biden-era risk assessments’ findings. The very industry leaders involved in the charge against the EPA’s formaldehyde assessments in recent years were appointed this year by the Trump administration to run the relevant parts of the agency – and now they are attacking the science from the inside.

The proposed changes represent a scenario that many public health advocates feared if Trump handed over the EPA to industry. In the simplest terms, the changes would maintain industry profits while rolling back efforts to better protect people’s health.

“When you have chemicals that are this ubiquitous and this toxic, they really call out for strong regulations,” said Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, an attorney with Earthjustice, which litigates on toxic chemical issues. “You really need the government to do its job and provide protections.”

Aside from being a known carcinogen, formaldehyde is linked to respiratory issues, miscarriage and fertility problems.

Over strong chemical industry opposition, Biden’s EPA in January finalized its formaldehyde risk assessment findings, which inform the development of regulations that limit or prohibit the substance’s use in consumer goods and the workplace.

Formaldehyde is ubiquitous in consumer goods in part because it is versatile. Companies add it to cosmetics, personal care products, paints and crafting products because it’s an effective preservative. It is also commonly added as a binder to composite wood, like particle board, that is used to make furniture, cabinets and other home goods. Bamboo products, including cutting boards, are often bound with formaldehyde glue.

The substance is added to clothing or textiles to help prevent mold growth and deterioration, and used in plastics, such as kitchenware, to help products resist heat. Furniture foam and mattress producers utilize it as an adhesive or antimicrobial agent.

Because formaldehyde off gasses from products to which it is added, inhalation of the chemical is considered the biggest risk. The risk assessments from both Biden and Trump’s teams focused on inhalation.

Regulations around toxic chemicals contain a major flaw, in that they do not consider the cumulative exposure to substances. For example, if regulators are considering the risk in formaldehyde in makeup, they don’t evaluate how the levels are compounded by formaldehyde that may also be in a desk, car interior or other products that people may also be exposed to during the day.

That is in part why the Biden EPA’s findings were so important – they would have lowered exposures virtually across the board. Biden’s EPA found 58 scenarios in which formaldehyde can present an “unreasonable risk” to human health, and the Trump administration is reversing five of those.

The law requires the EPA to put in place restrictions on uses in which the agency finds an unreasonable risk. No new restrictions would be put in place for those five scenarios the Trump administration reversed, which Kalmuss-Katz said involved industrial workplace exposure.

For the other 53 scenarios in which Biden’s EPA found an unreasonable risk, the weakened risk assessment findings would lead to weaker restrictions. Among consumer product scenarios in which the EPA found unreasonable risk of exposure to formaldehyde are furniture, wood products and automotive products.

“Any sort of protections are going to be much weaker than they would have been,” said Maria Doa, the chemicals policy director with the Environmental Defense Fund, which litigates on toxic chemicals.

The move is part of a broader effort to weaken risk assessments around toxic chemicals, and industry for decades has waged war against stricter regulations around formaldehyde.

At the heart of the Trump EPA’s reassessments is how agency scientists assess cancer risk. Previously, carcinogens that damaged DNA were considered among the most dangerous because any exposure presents a cancer risk.

EPA scientists assessed the chemicals using a “linear” risk assessment, meaning it assumes a cancer risk all the way down to “zero” exposure to formaldehyde, or other carcinogens. This approach has long been the EPA standard, and an industry target.

The new Trump administration approach sets a threshold at which exposure is considered a risk. Any level of exposure below that threshold is considered safe. In short, levels of exposure that are now considered a cancer risk will not be if the changes are approved.

The EPA and its chemical safety office is helmed by two former executives from the American Chemistry Council, a trade group that represents nearly 200 of the nation’s top chemical makers and has welcomed the agency’s new stance.

Nancy Beck is now the EPA’s deputy assistant administrator, while Lynn Dekleva is the deputy assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. As recently as 2022, Dekleva helped lead the attacks on the EPA formaldehyde findings that she is now working from the inside to undo. The EPA has defended Dekleva’s and Beck’s involvement in the new risk assessments, insisting that they comply with federal ethics rules.

The proposed change bucks science from across the federal government and independent researchers that have reached a broad consensus on formaldehyde’s risks. The proposal also follows the usual industry playbook in that it claims no consensus on the risks exists.

Doa, of the Environmental Defense Fund, said the new risk assessment “cherry-picked” data to arrive at its conclusions, but a lawsuit cannot be filed until the regulatory process plays out. “What they’re doing is scientifically horrendous and not correct,” Doa added. “It’s such chutzpah.”