The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed significant new use rules under the Toxic Substances Control Act for 19 chemical substances, a step that would require anyone who intends to manufacture, import or process the chemicals for a designated new use to notify EPA at least 90 days before starting.
The proposed rules were published in the Federal Register on Nov. 2, 2026, under docket number EPA-HQ-OPPT-2026-5974. Each of the 19 substances was the subject of a premanufacture notice and is already covered by an order EPA issued under TSCA. Those orders bind the companies that first brought the chemicals forward; the new rules, if finalized, would extend the advance-notification requirement to anyone else.
Under the proposal, a significant new use is an activity that departs from the conditions in the existing orders. Depending on the substance, those conditions include use of a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health-certified respirator with an assigned protection factor of at least 50 where there is a potential for inhalation exposure, protective equipment where there is a potential for skin exposure, a hazard communication program with precautionary statements on each label and in the safety data sheet, limits or bans on use in consumer products, and prohibitions on releasing the substance, or waste streams containing it, to water.
The list includes graphene platelets, identified in the rule under premanufacture notice P-25-18. EPA says the stated use is as a paint coating, and that based on the substance’s properties and comparison to similar chemicals it identified concerns for lung effects, including lung overload, and systemic effects. Graphene oxide is covered under two notices, P-25-29 and P-25-30. The rule also covers a dioctyltin compound, for which EPA identified concerns including acute neurotoxicity and respiratory tract irritation based on comparison to analogous organotin chemicals, and two photoacid generators, under notices P-26-29 and P-26-45.
EPA describes five of the 19 substances as potential persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic chemicals under the category its New Chemicals Program uses for substances that linger in the environment and build up in living tissue.
The proposal also reaches exports. Under the rule as proposed, anyone who exports or intends to export a covered substance on or after Dec. 2, 2026, is subject to the export notification requirements of TSCA section 12(b).
EPA set Nov. 2, 2026, the date the proposal was published, as the cutoff for determining whether a use is already ongoing. Public comments on the proposed rules must be received on or before Dec. 2, 2026, and are submitted under the docket number at regulations.gov. If finalized, the rules would be added to the Code of Federal Regulations at 40 CFR 721.12320 through 721.12338.
This article is based on the proposed rule, “Significant New Use Rules on Certain Chemical Substances (26-7),” as published in the Federal Register on Nov. 2, 2026.
