Oct 14, 2021
All Things Chemical will reach our 3rd anniversary on October 23rd and we want to share this celebration with you. As we look back on the last three years I wanted to bring back an older episode from the summer of 2020, “Implementing Lautenberg — A Conversation with former OPPT Director Jeffery T. Morris, Ph.D.” During this episode I spoke with Jeff Morris about how the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics implemented Lautenberg back in 2016, and how TSCA can be implemented in the future to address social inequities and achieve its goals of environmental justice. I hope you enjoy it and take this opportunity to listen to some more episodes from our archives.
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This week I sat down with Dr. Jeff Morris, immediate past Director of EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT), the EPA office that regulates the industrial chemical sector. Jeff directed EPA’s implementation of the 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and headed the office most immediately impacted by the significant changes brought about by the Lautenberg amendments.
In our discussion, we talk about how Jeff and his OPPT colleagues managed the daunting task of implementing a new law, and how the Agency has fared since the law’s enactment four years ago. We discuss Jeff’s interest in environmental justice, and how TSCA might be used to address the impact of environmental harms and their disproportionate adverse impact on people of color and the poor.
We also discuss Jeff’s important role in EPA’s Office of Research and Development and its research program on nanomaterials and nanotechnology, and how his background prepared Jeff well for addressing TSCA’s application to emerging chemical technologies.
We conclude by learning more about what Jeff is up to now in his new role as a principal in Jeff Morris Solutions, LLC. I really enjoyed my conversation with Jeff. He and I have known each other for many years, and I have long admired Jeff’s integrity, his commitment to public service, and his epic understanding of chemical policy, science, and regulation.
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