Small Chemicals Business Group Says No to New Regulations

The Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA) issued a call last week for Congress "to avoid imposing large, new financial burden that would threaten their businesses."  SOCMA is concerned that several pending bills, in particular "those to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and another designed to tighten chemical security laws by mandating product substitution, could significantly add to the financial burden of complying with regulation."


Organizations like SOCMA serve the batch, custom and speciality chemical industry, which are mostly smaller and mid-size companies.  Unlike the bigger multinational companies, these smaller producers have fewer resources to deal with new requirements. 

Which is why the TSCA reform proposals on the table now have provisions to help small and medium sized businesses.  Whether they are enough or sufficiently balance the needs of specialty businesses with the needs of the public to know that chemicals have been demonstrated to be safe is still open to debate.  As SOCMA notes, there is a "high likelihood that the next Congress to convene early next year will look very different from this one."  And that could mean significant differences in what the final TSCA reform bills look like.

Industry Reaction to the House Toxic Chemicals Safety Act of 2010

As noted in my posts over the last few days, Representatives Waxman and Rush formally introduced their Toxic Chemicals Safety Act of 2010.  Initial reactions have been offered by various stakeholders.  Given that all were released before anyone really had a chance to review the bill, they not unsurprisingly reflect the prior positions developed following the discussion draft.

Industry's reaction was mixed and somewhat noncommittal.  The American Chemistry Council, which represents many of the largest manufacturers of chemicals, issued a statement noting that the bill "is a step toward modernization of the nation’s chemical safety laws," but also suggesting that "more effort will be required to develop legislation that protects consumer safety, preserves America’s position as a leading innovator and safeguards American jobs."  The National Association of Manufacturers were more direct in stating their dislike for the bill, stating "“manufacturers are concerned with the direction taken in the Toxic Chemicals Safety Act.  In its current form, the bill hurts manufacturers’ ability to innovate and remain competitive in a global marketplace.  It dramatically expands the scope of the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority over every sector of our nation’s economy, sets unrealistic standards and timeframes and puts unnecessary burdens on manufacturers with new and inconsistent statutory requirements."   Similarly, the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates, which represents many smaller and specialty manufacturers, states that the legislation would significantly hamper innovation and impose stringent regulatory burdens on batch, specialty and custom chemical manufacturers - particularly small and mid-sized companies."

No one should be surprised that industry organizations, which had largely indicated support for the modernization of TSCA for the greater part of the last year or two, would express misgivings about the bills when finally introduced.  Obviously after 34-years under the old system, there is hesitancy to jump into something new too fast.  Especially when it could be a significant burden on their memberships.  Given the reaction from industry this would seem to be the final nail in the coffin for passing TSCA reform legislation in this Congress.  With only a handful of legislative days left in the session and a likely rather eventful mid-term election, clearly industry and the minority party in Congress have no incentive or desire to rush a comprehensive bill to passage.  And so there seems to be much work to be done before another version gets introduced in the next Congress beginning January 2011.

Tomorrow I'll take a look at the advocacy community reaction.

SOCMA Comments on House Toxic Chemicals Safety Act Discussion Draft

As I noted yesterday, not everyone is happy with the way things are panning out on the House "discussion draft" version of the Toxic Substances Safety Act, aka, TSCA reform. House members have been having stakeholders meetings since it's unveiling in April, and a formal bill is expected to be introduced this summer. One stakeholder group, the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA) is worried that “the potential universe of chemical substances, and the burdens of the new law, would skyrocket.” Specifically, they note:

1) The "sheer scope and the lack of definition" of the bill will be unworkable. Because EPA would receive "300 minimum data sets" within 18 months after it finalizes the priority list, and they would be required to act on them within 6 months, SOCMA fears that there would not be time for peer review and thus the safety determinations would be rushed and not in sufficient depth for decision-making.

2) The draft doesn't seem to authorize collection of data from downstream users, which means all the use and exposure data would still come from manufacturers, who don't always know how their chemicals are used by others.

3) The definition of "adverse effect" is so broad that it could include effects that intended, e.g., pharmaceutical uses. They are also concerned about what is meant by "cumulative exposure" as this seems to be unworkable in a practical sense.

4) The minimum data set is a concern, especially since SOCMA represents many small batch manufacturers. I discussed options for making this more workable in yesterday's post.

5) The discussion draft drops certain exemptions that were present in TSCA. For example, an "articles" exclusion is gone, which would mean that articles would be included in the requirements for data. Most outside parties feel this is a major road block to a workable law. The low volume exclusion is also gone, which means even the smallest production volumes would be required to present some base set of data.

SOCMA has several other concerns as well, including the proposed prioritization scheme, reporting, preemption, fees, and information disclosure, the latter of which is one of SOCMA's highest priorities. They are concerned that their membership, who as small companies are the innovators of the chemical industry, would be exposed to "corporate espionage" should the strict confidential business information protections be loosened.

There's more, and we'll see some of it come out as the discussion process moves forward. And of course once the House introduces the formal bill there will continue to be discussions over the details.