NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, 16 September 2026 - A federal appeals court has vacated the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s sweeping methylene chloride restrictions, delivering a major victory to chemical manufacturers and downstream users while prompting warnings that workers and consumers have lost critical protections.
On 15 September 2026, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit set aside the EPA’s 2024 risk-management rule and the unreasonable-risk determination supporting it. The court found legal errors and concluded that key EPA decisions were not supported by the substantial evidence required under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). It returned the matter to the agency for further proceedings.
The ruling does not find methylene chloride safe. The court acknowledged that overexposure can cause injury or death and that the chemical has carcinogenic properties. Its decision instead focused on how the EPA evaluated those hazards and whether the resulting restrictions were sufficiently supported and tailored to individual uses.
Why the rule was overturned
Methylene chloride, also known as dichloromethane or DCM, is a volatile solvent used across consumer, commercial, and industrial applications.
The EPA’s rule, published on 8 May 2024, prohibited 40 of the 53 conditions of use it evaluated. Thirteen industrial and commercial uses could continue under a Workplace Chemical Protection Program involving exposure limits, monitoring, recordkeeping, and protective measures.
The Fifth Circuit rejected the EPA’s conclusion that methylene chloride presented an unreasonable risk as a “whole chemical.” The court held that TSCA requires the agency to make separate risk determinations for individual conditions of use.
That distinction mattered because the EPA’s 2020 evaluation found unreasonable risk for 47 conditions of use but no unreasonable risk for six. When the agency adopted a whole-chemical determination in 2022, those six findings were effectively displaced even though the underlying scientific analysis had not changed.
The court also found that the EPA could not assume workers never used personal protective equipment when evidence showed that such equipment was used and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requirements already applied.
It separately rejected the evidentiary basis for the EPA’s exposure limits of 16 parts per million over 15 minutes and two parts per million over eight hours. The judges said the agency did not adequately address contrary scientific evidence, less restrictive controls, economic consequences, or the availability of technically and economically feasible substitutes before prohibiting numerous uses.
Which products and uses are affected?
Because the court vacated the entire 2024 rule, the prohibitions and workplace requirements imposed through that rule no longer apply.
The affected product categories included:
Spot removers
Degreasers and cleaners
Adhesives and sealants
Automotive products
Commercial and industrial paint and coating removers
Products used in furniture refinishing and architectural restoration
Certain formulations and mixtures containing methylene chloride
The rule also affected the manufacture, import, processing, repackaging, recycling, distribution, and disposal of methylene chloride, as well as its use in laboratories, plastics and rubber manufacturing, solvent welding, chemical production, and battery component manufacturing.
Some activities would have been prohibited. Others could have continued only under the EPA’s Workplace Chemical Protection Program. The court’s decision removes both categories of requirements established by the 2024 rule.
However, the ruling does not return every methylene chloride product to the market. The EPA’s separate 2019 rule prohibiting the manufacture, processing, and distribution of methylene chloride for consumer paint and coating removal was not challenged and remains in effect. Companies must also continue complying with applicable OSHA standards and other federal or state requirements.
The court also did not hold that the affected products can never be regulated. The EPA may conduct new use-specific evaluations and impose revised restrictions if it follows the Fifth Circuit’s interpretation of TSCA and adequately supports its conclusions.
Industry welcomes a more targeted approach
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) welcomed the decision, saying it confirmed that TSCA decisions must reflect science, evidence, and actual workplace conditions.
“America’s chemical manufacturers welcome the Court’s decision, which reinforces that TSCA decisions must be grounded in science, evidence, and real-world conditions,” the organization said on 16 September 2026.
The ACC argued that the ruling supports targeted regulation of uses that create unreasonable risk instead of treating every use of a chemical alike. It also emphasized the need to consider existing OSHA requirements, workplace protections, and the economic consequences of restrictions.
For manufacturers and industrial users, the ruling creates an opportunity to demonstrate that particular applications can continue safely under engineering controls, personal protective equipment, or other safeguards.
But it may also prolong regulatory uncertainty. Keller and Heckman counsel Lauren Gates called the judgment a “complete teardown” of the EPA’s risk-evaluation process and warned of “ripple effects throughout the entire agency.”
Although some industry groups may welcome the outcome, Gates cautioned that it could leave the broader TSCA program tied up for longer: “Be careful what you wish for.”
Critics say the ruling undermines the purpose of TSCA reform
Toxic-Free Future argued that the decision does more than eliminate one regulatory program: it undermines the public-health purpose of the 2016 amendments to TSCA.
“Congress updated TSCA in 2016 so that EPA could finally take action to get dangerous chemicals like methylene chloride out of our homes and workplaces,” said Liz Hitchcock, the organization’s director of federal policy.
That position presents a fundamentally different understanding of the amended law from the one adopted by the Fifth Circuit. The court emphasized use-specific findings, evidence of personal protective equipment, and limits on regulation beyond what is necessary to address a demonstrated unreasonable risk. Toxic-Free Future instead emphasized Congress’s intention to strengthen the EPA’s ability to act against hazardous chemicals after decades of limited federal regulation.
The organization warned that vacating the rule would expose consumers and workers to greater risks from a chemical associated with cancer, neurological and liver effects, kidney toxicity, and death from acute exposure.
“This ruling sides with the chemical industry at the expense of public health and will put more people at risk of serious harm, including death from acute exposure, cancer, and kidney and liver toxicity from long-term exposures,” Hitchcock said. “EPA should protect people’s health, not bring back dangerous chemicals.”
The Sierra Club had separately challenged the rule for being insufficiently protective, citing risks to fenceline communities, genetically susceptible people, and the ozone layer. The Fifth Circuit denied that petition while granting the industry challenge.
What industry should do now
Businesses should identify which operational, product, and supply chain changes were being made specifically to meet the 2024 rule. Requirements originating solely from that rule must now be distinguished from OSHA obligations, the continuing 2019 consumer paint-remover ban, and other applicable requirements.
Companies should not automatically abandon changes already underway. Exposure monitoring, engineering controls, and substitution programs may still be justified by worker safety, state law, customer requirements, or potential liability.
Businesses should also preserve exposure measurements, personal protective equipment records, substitution studies, and analyses of technical and economic feasibility. The court placed considerable weight on the administrative record, making credible operational and scientific evidence important in any replacement EPA proceeding.
The decision may also influence pending challenges involving asbestos, trichloroethylene, perchloroethylene, and carbon tetrachloride, where similar questions have arisen about whole-chemical determinations, workplace controls, and scientific evidence.
For industry, the judgment removes an extensive compliance framework and reopens uses that the 2024 rule would have prohibited. It does not end the regulatory dispute. The next phase is likely to be more use-specific, more evidence-intensive, and potentially more prolonged—for the EPA, regulated businesses, and the workers the law is intended to protect.