EPA is urging a federal court to dismiss environmentalists’ suit challenging its rejection of their petition seeking to ban the practice of fluoridating water under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), with the agency defending its views on the key issue of which chemical uses must be considered in TSCA assessments and possible future regulation.

The suit, Food & Water Watch Inc., et al, v. EPA, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, challenges EPA’s decision last February to deny the groups’ 2016 petition seeking a ban on fluoridation — a single use of a class of chemicals.

In a Sept. 25 motion to dismiss, the agency reiterated its view that the petition — filed by Food and Water Watch (FWW), the Fluoride Action Network (FAN), and others — was at odds with TSCA’s mandate to review chemicals and address risks from all their uses, and is insufficiently specific in describing the chemicals it wants EPA to act upon…

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