US chem officials warn against US-REACH bill

21 May 2008 23:19  [Source: ICIS news]

WASHINGTON (ICIS news)--A congressional effort to establish a REACH-like US regulatory programme for chemicals is inappropriate, impractical and could drive still more manufacturing offshore, chemical industry officials said on Wednesday.

 

The Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association (SOCMA) said new legislation introduced on Tuesday in Congress to revamp US chemicals testing and commercial use regulations “overreaches in its efforts to impose a new approach to regulating human health and the environment”.

 

The association was responding to yesterday’s introduction of the “Kid Safe Chemicals Act” by Senator Frank Lautenberg (Democrat-New Jersey) and Representatives Hilda Solis and Henry Waxman, both Democrats of California.

 

The bill would establish pre-market testing and safety certification requirements very similar to those in the controversial EU programme for the registration, evaluation and authorisation of chemicals (REACH).

 

“The bill’s REACH-like focus creates a regulatory burden that only punishes good actors and may only encourage more business offshore,” SOCMA said.

 

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) also raised objections to the bill, warning that it “contains some impractical solutions that may not produce the benefits intended by the bill’s authors”.

 

The council said that while it supports many of the bill’s provisions to enhance the protection of children’s health and manage potential risks of chemicals in commerce, the measure would duplicate and disrupt existing and effective US chemical controls.

 

“For example, the bill proposes a ‘no harm’ standard for all chemicals in commerce regardless of use or potential exposure,” the council said.

 

“Further, the bill’s biomonitoring provisions are duplicative of work already being conducted by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and don’t reflect CDC’s view that simply detecting a substance in human biomonitoring does not mean there’s a risk of developing disease,” the council added.

 

Among other things, the bill would require almost immediate use restrictions for any chemical substance found to be in human cord blood in newborns.

 

SOCMA also suggested that if made law the bill could undermine health and lifestyle advances brought about by chemical product advances. 

 

“The bill ignores industry’s existing obligation as a major contributor to the improvement of human health as part of the manufacturing process,” the association said.

 

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By: Joe Kamalick
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