The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed giving chemical processors another year to stop several uses of trichloroethylene (TCE), the industrial solvent it restricted in 2024, along with related wastewater disposal. The proposal was published on October 14, and comments are due November 13. Until EPA finalizes it, the current deadlines stand.
Which Deadlines Would Move
Two deadlines would shift from December 18, 2026, to December 31, 2027. The first covers processing TCE as a reactant or intermediate and using it as a processing aid. That includes its role as a process solvent in battery manufacturing, polymer fiber spinning, fluoroelastomer and Alcantara production, caprolactam extraction and beta-cyclodextrin precipitation. The second covers disposal of TCE from those activities to industrial pretreatment, industrial treatment or publicly owned treatment works.
A third change involves HFC-134a, a refrigerant made using TCE as an intermediate. The step requiring producers to cut TCE feedstock to 75% of their baseline would move from June 7, 2027, to the end of that year. EPA is also asking for comment on a later date of December 18, 2028, suggested by stakeholders. Dates for other uses, such as degreasing and battery separators, and the prohibition on manufacturing TCE are not part of the proposal.
Why EPA Is Revisiting Its Own Rule
Chemical processors told the agency that byproduct TCE above the regulatory threshold routinely travels by railcar between sites. Halting that processing would push the material to incineration, which could exceed permit limits and close facilities, and could disrupt production of other chlorinated solvents that generate TCE as a byproduct. Orbia, a refrigerant producer, told EPA that demand for HFC-134a in military, industrial and medical uses will stay high. EPA acknowledges it is changing its position and puts the cost savings at under $1 million in present value.
This is the second round of relief. The December 2024 rule banned all TCE uses after EPA found the chemical presents an unreasonable risk to health, with longer phaseouts and time-limited exemptions for specific uses. A September 2025 interim final rule had already moved the wastewater deadline for these processors to December 18, 2026. The 2024 rule is also being litigated, the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy notes, and EPA says it is reconsidering it separately. EPA's draft risk evaluations of two other industrial solvents show its scrutiny reaches beyond TCE.
Worker Protections Still Apply
Facilities still using TCE under a phaseout remain under the rule's workplace chemical protection program. That program sets an interim exposure limit of 0.2 parts per million as an eight-hour time-weighted average and requires dermal protection. Wastewater permits come from separate programs, and the proposal does not change them. Plants facing more than one wastewater deadline, such as the PFAS limits for metal finishers that slipped to 2027, will have to track each on its own schedule.
For environmental, health and safety teams, the first task is confirming whether each process falls within the listed uses. The final date could land at the end of 2027, slide to 2028 or stay where it is, which argues for keeping substitution and wastewater projects moving. Chemical compliance is already shifting from monitoring toward engineering changes, and those projects take longer than a single comment period.
