NPRA ’07: US, other governments may adopt Reach

27 March 2007 19:42  [Source: ICIS news]

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (ICIS news)--Governments in the US and elsewhere may soon adopt environmental controls on the commercial use of chemicals similar to the EU’s new registration programme, a European parliamentarian said on Tuesday.

 

Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, a member of the European Parliament representing Germany, told chemical industry executives that the EU’s new programme for the registration, evaluation and authorisation of chemicals (Reach) very likely will migrate to other countries.

 

He said Reach or Reach-like chemical controls legislation may well appear in US sub-federal jurisdictions - such as state, county and municipal governments - even if Reach is rejected by US federal policymakers in the White House and Congress.

 

He noted that the US government’s opposition to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on global warming did not deter some US state and municipal governments from enacting their own emissions control statutes echoing principles embodied in the Kyoto Protocol.

 

“I believe that some states like California under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Massachusetts have taken the Kyoto Protocol as inspiration for regulations of their own,” Lambsdorff said.  He said Salt Lake City, Utah was among US cities to enact local regulations reflecting Kyoto Protocol objectives.

 

“Some may also look at Reach and use it as a blueprint for chemicals regulation at the state level here in this country,” Lambsdorff said.

 

In addition, he said, other countries are expressing interest in adopting Reach-like control systems.

 

“The Chinese, for one, are already all over the place in Brussels trying to learn as much as they can about Reach,” Lambsdorff said, referring to the EU headquarters in Belgium.

 

“We have had many conversations with the Japanese, as well as with many other of our trading partners,” he said.

 

“So, in one form or another, you may run into Reach or Reach-like regulations in unexpected places in the not too distant future,” Lambsdorff said.

 

Lambsdorff spoke at one of the concluding sessions of the 32nd annual National Petrochemical & Refiners Association (NPRA) petrochemicals conference.  The conference concluded on Tuesday.

By: Joe Kamalick
+1 713 525 2653

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