In NAM-Supported Move, EPA Closes Chemical Risk Assessment Office
As it shuts down its Integrated Risk Information System program, the Environmental Protection Agency is evaluating the way it assesses risks agency-wide (Inside EPA, subscription).
What’s going on: On April 27, EPA “Deputy Administrator David Fotouhi signed an internal memo to top EPA officials shuttering the IRIS program and ordering its regulatory offices to review and potentially reverse actions based on its hazard findings.”
- IRIS was created in 1985 to identify and characterize “the health hazards of chemicals found in the environment,” according to the EPA’s website.
- This move reflects the administration’s commitment to “gold standard science” and is a step toward advancing “fit-for-purpose” risk assessments—a principle the NAM has long advocated.
- In April 2025, the NAM told EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin that IRIS “fails to comply with regular rulemaking requirements” and “has increasingly been used to develop overly burdensome regulations on critical chemistries used in essential products.”
What’s next: The EPA will continue to make IRIS assessments and other information available, Fotouhi said, but “specific disclaimer language will be added to EPA’s IRIS website to remind users that IRIS values represent only the first two steps of the four-step risk assessment process and are not necessarily intended for use as regulatory levels.”
What it follows: The shuttering comes less than a year after the administration announced the dismantling of the EPA’s Office of Research and Development, which housed IRIS.