Inside OCSPP with EPA Assistant Administrator Alexandra Dapolito Dunn

I am so pleased to present a very special guest this week, the Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP):  Alexandra Dunn.  Alex’s professional training could not be more perfect.  Alex is a lawyer and has practiced in both the private and non-profit sectors.  Alex has taught environmental law at several law schools and, while Dean of Environmental Law Programs at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, focused on environmental justice, a subject on which Alex has written and lectured extensively.

When Alex’s appointment was unanimously confirmed by the Senate at the beginning of this year, many of us were excited and confident that Alex would lead OCSPP with her characteristic integrity, resolve, and warmth.  Alex’s leadership over the past five months has well supported our confidence.  Alex has shown a commitment to making the work of the OCSPP more transparent, and her team has continued EPA’s streak of hitting every one of the deadlines imposed by the 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) amendments.

As Assistant Administrator Dunn has spent just over five months in office, we sat down and talked about what it’s been like to take over OCSPP at this crucial time when post-Lautenberg TSCA is just coming into its maturity.  We discussed the challenges OCSPP is currently facing, and how Alex and her team have kept morale up while managing to meet all of the many deadlines imposed on OCSPP thus far.  We touched on the role of litigation in EPA’s work, plans for TSCA at 3, the significance of certain Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) registration decisions, and how to channel the many voices of such a broad range of stakeholders as those the EPA must address.  And finally, we talked about what to expect and what is to come for the remainder of this year.

This was a fantastic opportunity to gain insight into what has been going on inside the OCSPP over the last few months, and what to expect from it in the next few months.  I really think you’re going to enjoy this one, so, here’s my conversation with Assistant Administrator Alexandra Dunn.

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