BASF: 334 Unreported Chemicals. Zero Admission of Guilt.
Source: U.S. EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, signed May 9–13, 2025
TL;DR
- The Company: BASF Corporation, the U.S. arm of BASF SE, one of the largest chemical companies on the planet. U.S. headquarters: 100 Park Avenue, Florham Park, New Jersey 07932.
- The Violation: BASF imported 334 chemical substances into the United States during calendar years 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 and failed to report them to the EPA by the legally required deadline of January 29, 2021. Each missed chemical is its own separate violation of federal law under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
- The Law Broken: Section 15(3)(B) of TSCA, 15 U.S.C. § 2614(3)(B). Federal law requires companies importing or manufacturing chemicals at or above threshold volumes to disclose them to the EPA through the Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) system, so regulators can assess public health and environmental risk.
- The Cover: BASF signed the settlement neither admitting nor denying the specific factual allegations. The full list of 334 chemicals is classified as Confidential Business Information (CBI) and was not filed publicly with the Regional Hearing Clerk. The public cannot see what was hidden.
- The Penalty: $700,000. For context, BASF SE reported revenues of approximately 68.9 billion euros in 2023. Seven hundred thousand dollars to one of the world’s biggest chemical companies is a rounding error on a rounding error.
- The Signatories: Suzanne Flaton-Origenes, Assistant Secretary, signed for BASF on May 9, 2025. Kathleen Anderson, Director of EPA Region 2 Enforcement, signed May 13, 2025. Regional Judicial Officer Helen Ferrara issued the Final Order the same day.
- Why It Matters: The CDR system is one of the only mechanisms the public has to know what chemicals companies are pouring into the supply chain. When those reports don’t get filed, communities near facilities have no way to demand safety data, researchers can’t flag risks, and regulators can’t do their jobs.
The list of all 334 chemicals was classified confidential and withheld from public filings. The section on what that secrecy actually costs is in The Non-Financial Ledger.
How You Hide 334 Chemicals in Plain Sight
The Toxic Substances Control Act exists for one reason: so the government, and by extension the public, can know what chemicals are circulating through American commerce. The Chemical Data Reporting rule that sits beneath TSCA requires any company importing or manufacturing 25,000 pounds or more of a regulated chemical substance at a single site during a reporting cycle to disclose that activity. For chemicals already flagged under specific TSCA review orders, the threshold drops to 2,500 pounds. The data collected through this system feeds directly into EPA risk assessments. Without those reports, regulators are flying blind.
BASF Corporation imported 334 distinct chemical substances into the United States across four calendar years: 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. Every one of those 334 chemicals was on the EPA’s Master Inventory File as of June 1, 2020, meaning the obligation to report them was clear, documented, and non-negotiable. The 2020 CDR submission window was extended twice by the EPA. First from September 30, 2020 to November 20, 2020, and then again to January 29, 2021, giving companies additional time to get their filings in order. The final, extended, no-excuses deadline was January 29, 2021.
BASF filed its CDR Form U on February 8, 2021, ten days after the deadline. But that filing was incomplete. It was only through two subsequent amendments, filed on March 18, 2021 and May 17, 2021, that BASF added the 334 missing chemical substances. In other words, the chemicals disappeared from the record for the entire initial filing and only surfaced months later, after the window had closed.
The EPA did document technical difficulties with BASF’s submission, citing multiple communications between BASF and EPA contractors about problems with the e-CDRweb reporting tool between March 11 and May 10, 2021. The settlement record acknowledges these difficulties and notes EPA considered them in calculating the penalty. But the documentation of those technical problems does nothing to explain why 334 chemicals were absent from the February 8 filing in the first place. Technical tool problems during submission are not the same as failing to include the chemicals at all. The settlement does not explain the gap between those two facts.
On September 3, 2021, the EPA sent BASF a TSCA Information Request in lieu of an on-site inspection, requesting records on BASF’s compliance with TSCA Sections 4, 5, 6, 8, 12, and 13. BASF submitted records around October 1, 2021, and periodically supplemented them on an agreed schedule. It was not until May 8, 2024, that the EPA issued a formal Notice of Potential TSCA Liability identifying suspected violations. The entire process from missed deadline to final penalty order took over four years. BASF operated its import business throughout that entire period.
The final settlement, signed in May 2025, closes the matter with a $700,000 penalty and BASF’s certification that it is now in compliance. BASF neither admits nor denies the underlying facts. The 334 chemicals remain classified as Confidential Business Information, sealed from public view. The settlement is, in the language of the document itself, an “appropriate means of resolving the claims of EPA, Region 2, against Respondent without further litigation.” For BASF, that is an extremely convenient resolution.
The Non-Financial Ledger: What a Dollar Figure Cannot Measure
There is a specific kind of harm that never shows up in a consent agreement. It does not get a line item in the penalty calculation. It does not come with a docket number or a hearing officer’s signature. It is the harm that falls on people who never got to participate in the proceeding, who were never notified that chemicals were moving through supply chains near them, who had no access to the information that federal law was supposed to guarantee them. This is the ledger that BASF’s $700,000 check does not settle.
The Chemical Data Reporting system is not bureaucratic paperwork. It is a public health infrastructure. When companies report the chemicals they import, that data flows into EPA risk evaluations. Researchers use it to identify emerging chemical hazards. State environmental agencies use it to inform local monitoring decisions. Community organizations use it to demand answers about what is being brought into their neighborhoods and workplaces. Environmental justice advocates use it to document the disproportionate burden that chemical-intensive industries place on low-income communities and communities of color. Every time a company fails to report, it breaks a link in that chain. Four years of broken links involving 334 substances is not a clerical failure. It is a structural gap in the safety net.
The workers at BASF’s importation facilities, the truck drivers who moved the cargo, the warehouse staff who handled the shipments, the community residents who live near the ports of entry: none of them had access to information they were legally owed. The CDR system’s entire point is that downstream decision-makers, including the workers themselves, should be able to look at what is being brought into the country and ask questions. When 334 substances go unreported across four years, those questions never get asked. You cannot demand protections for chemicals you do not know are there.
The secrecy does not end with the violation period. Attachment A to the consent agreement, which contains the complete list of all 334 chemicals with their names and Chemical Abstracts Registry numbers or Accession Numbers, is classified as TSCA Confidential Business Information. The document was not filed with the Regional Hearing Clerk. It was not made available to the public. It was delivered only to BASF’s own representatives: Associate General Counsel John Erickson and Manager of Product Regulatory Center of Expertise Adam Bickel. The settlement that closes this case does so in a way that permanently shields the chemical identities from public scrutiny. Anyone living near a BASF import site who wants to know what those 334 substances were must take BASF’s word that they were handled appropriately. The EPA’s own enforcement process, the one designed to protect the public, produced a document that the public cannot fully read.
The dignity violation here is in the asymmetry of information. BASF knew what it was importing. The EPA, eventually, came to know. The workers, residents, and downstream communities never got to know, and the settlement ensures that gap remains permanent for those 334 substances. This is how corporate compliance culture operates in practice: violations are resolved between the regulated party and the regulator, with the affected community placed entirely outside the process. The public is treated as a passive bystander to decisions that directly affect their health and environment. The consent agreement does not even contain a provision requiring BASF to notify any community or worker group about the nature of the violation. There is no outreach requirement. There is no remediation plan. There is a check for $700,000 and a promise to file on time next cycle.
What compounds the betrayal is the timeline. The violations span 2016 through 2019. The reporting deadline that was missed was January 29, 2021. The Notice of Potential Liability was not issued until May 8, 2024. The Final Order was signed May 13, 2025. That is nine years from the start of the violation period to the final penalty order. Nine years in which the missing data sat outside the public record. Nine years in which anyone relying on the CDR data for those substances, for any purpose, was working from an incomplete picture. The harm from bad information is cumulative. It builds in the decisions that were made on incomplete data, the risk assessments that could not account for unreported volumes, and the safety standards that were never triggered because the trigger point was never disclosed.
Legal Receipts: The Exact Words They Signed
Every quotation and direct factual statement below is drawn verbatim from the EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, Docket No. TSCA-02-2025-9142, signed May 9–13, 2025. No paraphrasing. No invention. This is the record.
“In one or more of the calendar years 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019, Respondent imported for commercial purposes reportable quantities of the three hundred and thirty-four (334) chemical substances set forth in Appendix A, each such chemical substance identified by name and either Chemical Abstract Services Registry Number (CASRN) or Accession Number.” Findings of Fact, Paragraph 10 — Docket No. TSCA-02-2025-9142
“On February 8, 2021, Respondent filed CDR Form U. Respondent’s filing was adversely affected by technical difficulties with the required e-CDRweb reporting tool due in part to the large size of the submission.” Findings of Fact, Paragraph 14 — Docket No. TSCA-02-2025-9142
“Respondent subsequently amended its CDR Form U for the Facility on March 18, 2021, and amended it again on May 17, 2021. Respondent’s March and May amendments included the addition of the three hundred and thirty-four (334) chemical substances listed in Appendix A.” Findings of Fact, Paragraph 15 — Docket No. TSCA-02-2025-9142
“Respondent’s failures to timely report each of the chemical substances listed in Appendix A constitute failures to comply with the CDR requirements of 40 C.F.R. Part 711.” Conclusions of Law, Paragraph 31 — Docket No. TSCA-02-2025-9142
“Each of Respondent’s failures to comply with the CDR Requirements constitutes an unlawful act pursuant to Section 15(3) of TSCA, 15 U.S.C. § 2614(3), for which an individual penalty may be assessed.” Conclusions of Law, Paragraph 32 — Docket No. TSCA-02-2025-9142
“Respondent, for the purposes of this Consent Agreement and in the interest of settling this matter, knowingly and voluntarily agrees that by signing this Consent Agreement, it: [b.] Neither admits nor denies the specific factual allegations set forth above.” Consent Agreement, Paragraph 33(b) — Docket No. TSCA-02-2025-9142
“Respondent agrees to pay a civil penalty in the amount of Seven Hundred Thousand Dollars ($700,000) (‘Assessed Penalty’).” Consent Agreement, Paragraph 38 — Docket No. TSCA-02-2025-9142
“Full payment of the assessed penalty shall only resolve Respondent’s liability for federal civil penalties for the alleged violations described in Paragraphs 7-32 above. Full payment of this penalty shall not in any case affect the right of EPA or the United States to pursue appropriate injunctive or other equitable relief or criminal sanctions or violations of law.” Consent Agreement, Paragraph 46 — Docket No. TSCA-02-2025-9142
“As Attachment A contains information claimed as TSCA CBI, it will not be filed with the Regional Hearing Clerk but will be included with the CAFO served on Respondent to the individuals designated in the Certificate of Service via EPA’s Central Data Exchange (CDX).” Footnote 1, Paragraph 10 — Docket No. TSCA-02-2025-9142
“Section 15(3)(B) of TSCA, 15 U.S.C. § 2614(3)(B), provides that it is unlawful for any person to fail or refuse to submit any reports, notices, or information required by TSCA, 15 U.S.C. § 2601 et seq., or any rule promulgated thereunder. A failure or refusal to submit any such required reports, notices, or information constitutes a violation of Section 15(3)(B) of TSCA, 15 U.S.C. § 2614(3)(B).” Conclusions of Law, Paragraph 20 — Docket No. TSCA-02-2025-9142
“EPA considered the voluntary nature and timing of BASF’s amendments in accordance with applicable penalty policies in determining the amount of the civil penalties for such alleged violations.” Consent Agreement, Paragraph 35 — Docket No. TSCA-02-2025-9142
“On May 8, 2024, EPA issued a Notice of Potential TSCA Liability and Pre-Filing Opportunity to Meet to Respondent, identifying suspected violations under Section 8 of TSCA, 15 U.S.C. § 2607. On multiple occasions since that date, Respondent provided information responding to the suspected violations in the Notice.” Findings of Fact, Paragraph 18 — Docket No. TSCA-02-2025-9142
“This CAFO is not intended, and shall not be construed, to waive, extinguish, or otherwise affect Respondent’s obligation to comply with all applicable federal, state, and local laws or regulations, nor shall it be construed to be a ruling on or determination of any issue related to any federal, state, or local permit.” General Provisions, Paragraph 48 — Docket No. TSCA-02-2025-9142
Societal Impact Mapping: The Three Dimensions of Damage
Environmental Degradation
The Chemical Data Reporting rule exists precisely because chemical importation and manufacturing at industrial scale carry environmental risk. The CDR system aggregates volume data for substances already on the EPA’s Master Inventory File, the federal registry of chemicals in U.S. commerce. That data feeds directly into the EPA’s ongoing risk evaluation and prioritization process. When 334 substances go unreported across four calendar years, the volume data that should have informed those evaluations was simply absent. Risk models that depend on accurate volume data produce inaccurate outputs when that data has a 334-substance hole in it.
The fact that each of the 334 substances was on the Master Inventory File as of June 1, 2020, means these were known, regulated chemicals, substances already subject to federal oversight precisely because they warranted monitoring. These were substances whose volumes above 25,000 pounds per year at a single site, or above 2,500 pounds for substances under specific TSCA review orders, triggered mandatory disclosure. The threshold volumes exist because those quantities are relevant to environmental fate and transport modeling. Chemical substances imported in multi-ton quantities at a single facility create real loading in the surrounding environment through air emissions, wastewater discharge, and potential accidental release pathways. None of that loading was captured in the official record for the four years in question.
The import site designated throughout the settlement is BASF’s U.S. headquarters at 100 Park Avenue, Florham Park, New Jersey 07932. Under 40 C.F.R. §§ 711.3 and 711.15(b)(2), this was listed as the site of import for all 334 substances. New Jersey sits within one of the most densely industrialized chemical corridors in the United States, a region with documented histories of soil and groundwater contamination, legacy Superfund sites, and persistent air quality challenges. Any environmental monitoring effort in that region that relied on CDR data to understand the chemical landscape was working without BASF’s missing contributions for four years.
Public Health
The public health implications of the CDR reporting gap are structural, systemic, and long-term. The CDR database is a primary input for epidemiological and occupational health research. When academic and government researchers study chemical exposure risks in communities near industrial sites, they rely on CDR data to identify which substances are present in what volumes. Research that was conducted during or after the 2016 to 2019 reporting period, using CDR data to assess exposure pathways in the New Jersey region, was conducted without the information BASF was legally required to provide. The studies produced during those years reflect an artificially incomplete chemical profile.
Workers represent the first line of exposure risk in any chemical importation operation. The workers handling, transporting, and processing BASF’s imported chemical shipments had a legal right to workplace safety assessments based on complete chemical inventories. Occupational safety regulators and OSHA compliance programs depend in part on CDR data to understand what chemicals workers are encountering in the supply chain. An incomplete CDR record creates gaps in the information infrastructure that supports worker health protections. The 334 unreported substances represent 334 opportunities for occupational health risks to go uncharacterized at the federal level during the relevant period.
The settlement document does not contain a single provision relating to public health notification, health monitoring, or remediation of any kind. There is no requirement for BASF to assess whether its reporting failures created any exposure risks that went unmanaged. There is no provision directing funds toward health screening for workers or community members. The $700,000 penalty flows entirely to the U.S. Treasury, not to any affected population. The settlement, as structured, treats the violation as a paperwork problem with a financial cure. The public health consequences of years of missing chemical volume data are treated as outside the scope of resolution entirely.
Economic Inequality
The $700,000 penalty functions as a cost of doing business, not a deterrent. To understand why, a simple comparison is necessary. BASF SE, the global parent company of BASF Corporation, reported net sales of approximately 68.9 billion euros in 2023. Seven hundred thousand dollars converted to euros at any recent exchange rate represents approximately 0.00094% of a single year’s reported revenue. Fines structured at this proportion of corporate income do not change behavior. They are priced into operational risk management. BASF’s own legal team almost certainly modeled the expected penalty exposure as part of a calculation about whether to prioritize timely compliance. When the fine is smaller than the cost of the compliance infrastructure investment required to avoid it, the rational corporate choice is to pay the fine.
This is not a hypothetical about corporate psychology. It is a structural feature of how U.S. environmental penalty law is applied to large industrial actors. The TSCA per-violation penalty cap has never been adjusted to keep pace with the scale of multinational chemical companies. A penalty that would devastate a small business, force a mid-sized operator into receivership, and represent a meaningful fraction of a regional company’s annual earnings is, for a company of BASF’s scale, a rounding error in the quarterly financial report. The economic inequality embedded in this penalty structure means that small chemical importers face proportionally catastrophic consequences for the same violations that leave multinationals functionally unaffected.
The communities that bear the greatest burden from unregulated chemical exposure are disproportionately lower-income and non-white. This is documented across decades of environmental justice research. The CDR reporting system is one of the few tools those communities have to demand transparency about what is being imported, manufactured, and stored near where they live and work. When that system has holes punched in it by underreporting, it is not BASF’s shareholders who absorb the cost of the missing information. It is the people downstream, in the communities closest to the import facilities, who lack the political power and legal resources to force disclosure on their own. The $700,000 settlement does nothing to compensate them. The sealed Attachment A ensures they will never even know which chemicals were involved.
The Numbers, Visualized: Penalty vs. Violations
Each bar represents a distinct metric from the EPA enforcement record. The 334-chemical bar dominates because it represents 334 individual federal violations, each independently penalizable under TSCA Section 15(3).
The “Cost of a Life” Metric: What $700,000 Means to BASF
Total Civil Penalty Assessed Against BASF Corporation
BASF SE reported net sales of approximately 68.9 billion euros in 2023.
At that revenue scale, this penalty represents roughly 0.001% of one year’s sales: the equivalent of asking someone earning $100,000 a year to pay a $1.00 fine for breaking the law for four years across 334 separate counts.
334 individual violations. $700,000 total. That is approximately $2,096 per violation for a multinational chemical company.
The EPA’s own language in the settlement states that the penalty amount was reduced to account for BASF’s “voluntary nature and timing” of amendments. Voluntarily correcting a violation you were caught on is the floor for corporate conduct, not a basis for a discount.
What Now: Who to Watch and Where to Push
The settlement is signed. The fine is assessed. BASF has certified compliance for the 2024 reporting cycle. But the enforcement record raises questions that a consent agreement does not answer, and several actors remain accountable beyond this single proceeding.
Corporate Roles Named in This Document
- Suzanne Flaton-Origenes, Assistant Secretary, BASF Corporation — Signed the consent agreement on behalf of BASF on May 9, 2025. The designated signatory for a company accepting a $700,000 federal penalty for 334 TSCA violations.
- John Erickson, Associate General Counsel, BASF Corporation — Designated as BASF’s representative for receipt of the CAFO. All EPA communications regarding this matter were directed to him at 100 Park Avenue, Florham Park, New Jersey 07932.
- Adam Bickel, Manager, Product Regulatory Center of Expertise, BASF Corporation — Designated recipient of the confidential Attachment A, including the full list of 334 chemical names and registry numbers. Located at 1609 Biddle Avenue, Wyandotte, Michigan 48192.
Regulatory Bodies With Ongoing Jurisdiction
- U.S. EPA Region 2 — Retains authority to pursue injunctive relief, additional equitable remedies, and criminal sanctions. The consent agreement explicitly states that penalty payment does not close these avenues. Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Division Director: Kathleen Anderson.
- U.S. EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) — Oversees TSCA implementation nationally. The CDR program falls under its authority. Public pressure on OCSPP to strengthen CDR penalty structures is warranted.
- U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division — The consent agreement explicitly preserves DOJ referral rights if BASF fails to pay or makes material misrepresentations. A referral pathway exists.
- OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) — Has independent authority to investigate chemical exposure risks to workers at BASF’s import and handling facilities. CDR data is an input to occupational risk assessment.
- New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection — State-level authority with jurisdiction over the Florham Park facility and surrounding environment. State agencies can request CDR data and conduct independent assessments.
What You Can Do
File a FOIA request. The EPA’s FOIA process can be used to request all non-CBI portions of the TSCA enforcement record for Docket No. TSCA-02-2025-9142, including any communications between EPA and BASF during the 2021 to 2024 investigation period. The CBI designation on Attachment A can be challenged through the FOIA appeals process if a requestor can demonstrate public interest necessity.
Contact your state environmental agency. If you live in New Jersey or Michigan, where BASF’s named facilities are located, your state DEP has independent authority to investigate and you have standing as a resident to request that they do so.
Support chemical transparency advocacy. Organizations working on environmental justice and chemical right-to-know legislation, including those pushing for stronger CDR enforcement penalties calibrated to company size rather than flat caps, are the structural solution to the problem this case represents. Grassroots pressure on Congress to reform TSCA penalty structures is the only lever that changes the cost-benefit calculation for corporations like BASF.
Mutual aid and local organizing. Communities near chemical import facilities and industrial sites deserve access to legal advocates and environmental health professionals. Local mutual aid networks that connect residents with environmental lawyers, union organizers, and community health workers are the first line of defense that federal enforcement will never be. If you are near a chemical facility, connect with your neighbors, find your local environmental justice organization, and build the capacity to demand transparency on your own terms.
The source document for this investigation is attached below.
You can read this exact same document that’s up above on the EPA’s website: https://yosemite.epa.gov/oa/rhc/epaadmin.nsf/Filings/C5ACB0D922816D2685258C8A004F4CF8/$File/BASF259142CAFO.pdf
There is also a press release on the BASF situation on the EPA’s website: https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-settlement-basf-ensures-they-comply-chemical-reporting-violations-new-jersey
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