EPA Is Reconsidering Its Risk Management Rule for PCE

EPA is reconsidering its final risk management rule for the solvent perchloroethylene, which requires most uses of PCE to be phased out in less than three years but allows a 10-year phaseout for its uses in dry cleaning to allow small businesses time to transition away from the chemical. PCE is often used as an alternative for trichloroethylene, or TCE.

Several legal challenges were filed following the PCE rule’s publication in December 2024. The petitions for review were consolidated in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which granted an abeyance, or temporary suspension of activity, through Aug. 21, 2025. According to EPA, the agency then “determined that the rule should be reconsidered through further rulemaking.” A 30-day public comment period that is open until Aug. 29 marks the first step in the agency’s reconsideration of the PCE rule.

While EPA is accepting comments on all aspects of the rule, the agency is particularly focused on the existing chemical exposure limit (ECEL) for inhalation exposures to PCE, which the rule sets at 0.14 ppm as an eight-hour time weighted average. A notice in the Federal Register highlights the potential for “different exposure limits,” including limits presented in a 2021 agency memo on the occupational use of PCE. The memo describes an acute non-cancer exposure limit of 0.50 ppm and a lifetime cancer exposure limit of 0.47 ppm, both as eight-hour TWAs. According to the memo, the current ECEL for PCE is a chronic non-cancer ECEL that the agency expects will also protect workers “against neurotoxicity resulting from acute occupational exposure.”

EPA also seeks feedback on uses of PCE the agency could consider subjecting to a workplace chemical protection program rather than a ban and the use of PCE in industrial dry-cleaning processes, particularly regarding controls for reducing exposure to PCE and how alternatives to the chemical perform in these settings.

The agency’s news release announcing the public comment period states that the review of the PCE rule “is being done in accordance with applicable law, executive orders, and administration policies.”

For further details and instructions for submitting comments, see the Federal Register notice.