Several industry groups, including catfish farmers, funeral home operators, and miners, have successfully lobbied the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to eliminate a 40-year-old chemical regulation system.
EPA’s Deputy Administrator, David Fatouhi, issued a memo on April 27 that terminated the 1985 Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), which classifies hazardous chemicals. This system has faced criticism for allegedly overestimating the toxicity of certain chemicals, which negatively impacted various industries.
IRIS was established through executive action and has not received Congressional approval. The program’s extensive toxicity evaluations have prompted over 80 industry groups to support an open letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, expressing their concerns. This letter, sent in January 2025, highlighted the issues stemming from IRIS toxicity values.
These toxicity values include risk assessments on carcinogens and safe pollution exposure levels. They have influenced clean standards and air quality regulations across the country. Still, critics argue that IRIS assessments often set regulatory levels unrealistically low, even below naturally occurring background levels.
Fatouhi’s memo points out that the IRIS program was intended to ensure consistency in risk evaluations. However, many judgments made under IRIS lacked optimal fit for risk evaluations tailored to legal and regulatory requirements.
The memo continues to outline that instead of relying on a single system for hazard classifications, the EPA will allow individual program offices to handle this responsibility. These specialized offices exist to enforce specific laws like the Clean Air Act.
The reception from industry representatives was largely positive regarding Fatouhi’s memo. Leslie Witter, executive vice president of the National Funeral Directors Association, remarked on the importance of formaldehyde in their profession and expressed relief that the EPA would move away from potentially flawed IRIS assessments.
Witter’s group, along with catfish farmers and the National Mining Association, had previously signed the open letter criticizing IRIS values. Another official from the chemical industry noted that the toxicity levels set for formaldehyde were often lower than what humans naturally exhale.
Many stakeholders from the mining sector praised the EPA’s revised approach, indicating that IRIS evaluations had been excessively conservative—leading to regulatory standards that were not only unhelpful but also untenable for many businesses.
The Chemical Industry Association also supported the cancellation of the IRIS program, citing concerns about its transparency and scientific rigor. An official mentioned that the standards set by IRIS could impose significant costs on water systems nationwide without any tangible public health benefits.
While industry representatives agreed on the positive nature of this change, there are calls for further adjustments. Dr. Kimberly Wise White from the American Chemistry Council noted that while the EPA’s actions were encouraging, the IRIS program still needed to be disbanded in favor of standards based on high-quality science.
In February 2025, Republican Congressman Glenn Grossman introduced the No IRIS Act, which seeks to make the repeal of the IRIS system official legislation. He pointed out that the IRIS assessments had often resulted in unrealistic standards which disproportionately affected small businesses.
Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana also contributed to the effort by introducing the Iris Ban Act in Congress, which is currently under review. Both legislators expressed optimism that the EPA’s new focus on a science-based regulatory approach would help maintain manufacturing in the United States while ensuring environmental protection.
