^®: CRE Regulatory Action of the Week

CRE Raises Data Quality Act Issues in EPA's PFOA Review
EPA solicited public comment on the Agency's proposed negotiation of Environmental Consent Agreements (ECAs) requiring additional testing for Perfluoroctanoic Acid (PFOA). EPA's Federal Register notice explained that one of the primary purposes of these ECAs is to develop data necessary to perform a PFOA risk assessment. EPA acknowledges that the development of these data will require accurate and reliable tests for many different media. CRE's comments stressed the Data Quality Act requirements for these tests. In particular, CRE emphasized the need for validating reproducible tests for PFOA in human and animal blood. The Data Quality Act requires validation of these tests before EPA can disseminate PFOA risk information based on human or animal blood levels. There currently are no validated PFOA blood tests that have been demonstrated to be reproducible among different laboratories.