A NEED FOR SECRECY
In my 25-year career with a major global chemical company I learned a few things. One such was that at the core of our offerings were only two values for customers; the chemical identity of our products, and the service supporting them.

I mean “chemical identity” in the general sense not merely the names of a commodity product such as acetic acid, but formulations, ingredients and their specification, catalysts and initiators involved in synthesis, process steps and operating conditions of them, and names of additives.

An understanding of those two things led to several business policies which were not unique to the firm for whom I worked. All were aimed at protecting “chemical identity.”

One business policy was to make MSDS as lean as possible of specificity (consistent with ethics and legality)....

SECRECY AT TSCA
A second business policy was to make filings with governments— also lean of specificity. A specific example was filings with the U.S. EPA as required for the EPA’s Chemical Inventory under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

Per 40 CFR 712, section 8(a) of TSCA requires that persons who manufacture, import, or process a chemical substance in “large” quantities maintain records and submit reports of production and exposure information. “Small” manufacturers, importers, and distributors are exempt. EPA repeatedly screens these chemicals. And EPA does require reporting, within 30 days of discovery, of “new” testing reports about whether those chemicals may pose an environmental or human-health hazard. EPA can ban the manufacture and import of those chemicals that pose an unreasonable risk.

LESS TRANSPARENCY
Obviously, part of that report is identity of the chemical being reported. One could avoid reporting specific chemical identities by making a certain type of confidentiality claim in the company’s disclosure. The claim was that the report contained “Confidential Business Information” (CBI). Equally obvious, that confidentiality claim was commonly made. Since most of EPA’s information is available to the public, firms nearly always made two filings one publicly available, and one to be held confidential by the EPA designated as having CBI.

For example, on November 12, 2009, a well-known globally-situated chemical company filed two copies of “Results of a Combined Repeated Dose Toxicity Study in Wistar Rats with 1,1,1 -Trimethylolpropane, Exthoxylated” per section 8(a) of TSCA. The copy available on the EPA’s website is noted by that firm as a “sanitized version.” The transmittal letter notes, “A confidentiality substantiation questionnaire is being submitted for this substance....”