The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing a significant new use rule (SNUR) under section 5(a)(2) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) for hexabromocyclodecane (HBCD). This proposed rule would designate “use in consumer textiles, other than for use in motor vehicles” as a significant new use. This action would require persons who intend to manufacture (including import) or process HBCD for use in covered consumer textiles to notify the EAP at least 90 days before commencing that activity. The general SNUR article exemption for persons who import or process chemical substances as part of an article would not apply.
Sources at the Food and Drug Administration state that a working group from the New York district office is currently reviewing the import filer evaluation process and will be making changes in the next few months. This follows a statement by the FDA that they recognize that the filer evaluation process currently does not distinguish between serious mistakes or omissions and typographical errors, and is working to improve this process. The FDA is also exploring procedures that would speed up this re-evaluation, which would provide an incentive for filers to improve their outcomes quickly.
The Environmental Protection Agency has issued a direct final rule to revoke certain testing requirements for six chemical substances and all the testing requirements for four chemical substances due to information received since publication of the first test rule for certain high production volume chemical substances (HPV1). HPV1 had established testing requirements for these 10 chemical substances.
On March 21 2012, the Food and Drug Administration posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of:
The Food and Drug Administration has announced that E. & J. Gallo Winery has filed a petition proposing that the color additive regulations in 21 CFR 73.350 be expanded. Specifically, it proposes to provide for the expanded safe use of mica-based pearlescent pigments prepared from titanium dioxide and mica as color additives in certain distilled spirits containing not less than 18% and not more than 23% alcohol by volume, but not including distilled spirits mixtures containing more than 5% wine on a proof gallon basis.
The Food and Drug Administration issued its weekly Enforcement Report for March 14, 2012 that lists the status of recalls and field corrections for food, drugs, biologics, and devices. The report covers both domestic and foreign firms.
On March 20 2012, the Food and Drug Administration posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of:
On March 19 2012, the Food and Drug Administration posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of:
The Food and Drug Administration is posting filer evaluation outcomes online, prospectively, starting from the beginning of fiscal year 2012, to help increase the accuracy of the information submitted to FDA and the accountability among the actors in the supply chain. This list will be updated monthly, and FDA will post the most recent outcome for each filer. The FDA states that, because this list is prospective, and updated monthly, interested parties should not make any inferences with regard to the status of filers that do not have filer evaluation outcomes posted on this site.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports that the Food and Drug Administration experienced server issues on March 19, 2012 that caused multiple applications to be unavailable for the processing of entry data, including PNSI, MARCS Entry Review, and OASIS. At 5:50 pm eastern time, FDA announced these problems were resolved; the backlog of entries is considerable, but will continue to be worked through until normal processing times return.