Shortly after announcing a case against a chemical supplier for failing to disclose imports of “hundreds of millions of pounds of toxic chemicals and their intended use,” the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on June 4, 2026, a settlement with an international agribusiness company for claims of violations of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) at its facilities in California and Washington. According to EPA, Wilbur-Ellis Company agreed to pay a penalty of $630,737 for failing to report chemical production properly. EPA notes that as a result of its action, “the company returned to compliance with federal chemical production reporting requirements.”
EPA claims Wilbur-Ellis violated TSCA by:
- Manufacturing a new, unreported chemical substance on at least 29 different occasions at its California facilities located in Willows, San Joaquin, and Rio Linda and its facility in Pomeroy, Washington, and failing to submit a notice of its intent to manufacture that chemical;
- Processing a separate chemical on at least one occasion, after EPA designated it as an “inactive substance,” and failing to submit a notice of processing for that chemical; and
- Producing more than 25,000 pounds of three additional chemical substances at its San Joaquin and Rio Linda facilities, and failing to submit required quadrennial chemical production data for these chemicals, “a filing essential to EPA’s ability to screen, assess, and manage chemical risks.”
EPA states that to return to compliance under federal law, the company submitted the relevant premanufacture notice (PMN) and revised chemical data reporting.
Commentary
While this is a fairly routine enforcement case resolving both PMN and Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rule violations, it is one of the first examples of EPA enforcing the prohibition on manufacture, import, or processing of an inactive substance. Readers may remember that the 2016 amendments to TSCA required EPA to establish a process to designate substances that are listed on the Inventory as active or inactive and prohibited companies from manufacture, import, or processing of substances that were designated as inactive. This designation adds to the diligence that companies must do when searching the TSCA Inventory: not only must a company ensure a substance is listed and be aware of and compliant with any regulatory requirements such as test rules and significant new use rules (SNUR), a company must also check the active/inactive status. Unlike a PMN or significant new use notice (SNUN), the procedural mechanism for changing a chemical’s Inventory status from “inactive” to “active” — a Notice of Activity Form B — is relatively straightforward to prepare and submit and does not require review by EPA. Such form must be filed before a company can commence manufacture or processing of a chemical designated as inactive to avoid the potential for costly penalties as evidenced by this case.
