IPC’s RoHS Exemptions workgroup and other industry members are deeply concerned that the recommendations recently provided to the EU Commission by their consultants will have a significant negative impact on the industry.  Many of the recommendations provide for only a two-year renewal and reword the current exemptions in ways that will lead to increase in complexity and burden.

On July 19, 2016, IPC and other members of the cross-industry Strategic Management Team sent a letter to Mr. Daniel Calleja Crespo, Director-General for the Environment at the European Commission highlighting industry concerns.

Under the EU RoHS2, all existing exemptions were set to expire by July 21, 2016. However, all exemptions for which industry submitted a renewal application will not expire until the EU Commission completes the current ongoing review of the applications, likely in late 2016 or early 2017.

IPC and its RoHS Exemptions Workgroup will continue our advocacy, which may include lobbying the Commission.

On September 7, Fern Abrams, IPC’s director of regulatory affairs and government relations, will present at Electronics Goes Green 2016+ Conference in Berlin, Germany. Her presentation, “Evolution of U.S. Chemicals Regulation: Updating the Toxic Substances Control Act for the 21st Century” will provide an overview of the main U.S. Chemicals Regulation, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the long road to reform, final legislation and the key issues for the electronics industry.

In addition, Abrams will highlight the “whys” of TSCA reform, and main provisions within the final legislation, including preemption of U.S. state laws and regulation of substances in articles, and the U.S. EPA’s implementation plan for the next several years.

IPC supported the bipartisan efforts to reform TSCA because a strong, cost-effective, science-based federal chemical regulatory program is important to our members, who use chemicals to manufacture electronics for the nation’s defense, aerospace, automotive, consumer and other industries

For more information on TSCA, visit IPC’s Toxic Substances Control Act webpage or contact Abrams at FernAbrams@ipc.org.

by Fern Abrams, director of regulatory affairs and government relations

On September 19, 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) posted a notice on the Chemical Data Reporting website that it has amended the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rule to extend the 2016 submission deadline from September 30, 2016, to October 31, 2016.

Under U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations, printed circuit board manufacturers who send byproducts, such as wastewater treatment sludge, spent etchant or spent baths, for recycling may be required to report under the CDR. Recently, IPC achieved a long-sought goal with the inclusion of a requirement for EPA to reexamine this rule passage as part of the of The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act amending TSCA.

According to the pre-publication version of the Federal Register notice for the final rulemaking, EPA granted the extension because of problems with certain the electronic reporting system that impact a business’s ability to submit within the required timeframe.

For more information, please review our CDR guidance and TSCA CDR website or contact me at FernAbrams@ipc.org or +1 (202) 661-8092.

March 10, 2016 blog posting on TSCA CDR reporting: IPC Concerned by EPA Fact Sheet on TSCA CDR Reporting.

On September 22, 2016, IPC submitted comments to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) highlighting our concerns with the draft guidance on requirements for substances in articles, version 4.0.

In the comments, IPC highlights concerns that guidance is confusing and lengthy and suggests specific changes.

On July 27, 2016 ECHA published draft guidance on the application of REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals) to substances in articles.

The court ruling directly affects the disclosures required of articles manufacturers. The new guidance addresses the EU Court of Justice ruling on September 10, 2015 on the that levels of substances of very high concern (SVHCs) must be calculate at the level of the “simple” article, not over the weight of the entire article as imported or as provided to the customer as stated in ECHA’s 2011 guidance.

A final guide is expected by the end of 2016 or early 2017 and the EU member states are planning a six- month enforcement pilot in early 2017.

The EU RoHS Directive 2011/65/EU restricts the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment. BiPRO GmbH has been commissioned by DG ENV to provide technical assistance regarding the evaluation of applications and the related stakeholder consultations, for the following two new exemptions:

• Cadmium in video cameras designed for use in environments exposed to ionising radiation and
• Lead and cadmium in PVC profiles of electric windows and doors

The consultation for the two applications for exemption will be open until Friday, December 9, 2016. Questionnaires to the stakeholders containing targeted questions for the consultation have been drafted for each of the exemption requests and available for each exemption request respectively at: http://rohs.exemptions.bipro.de/exemption-consultations/2016-2/.

A dedicated project website has been established at http://rohs.exemptions.bipro.de/.

On November 29, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the first 10 chemicals that will be undergo risk evaluations under the recently reformed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA):

•  1,4-Dioxane
•  1-Bromopropane
•  Asbestos
•  Carbon Tetrachloride
•  Cyclic Aliphatic Bromides Cluster
•  Methylene Chloride
•  N-methylpyrrolidone
•  Pigment Violet 29
•  Tetrachloroethylene, also known as Perchloroethylene
•  Trichloroethylene

Many of the listed solvents, have been used in electronics manufacturing and may still be in use in certain locations and applications.

Under the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (LCSA) which amended TSCA, EPA must release a scoping document within six months for each chemical and complete the risk evaluations within three years.  Depending on the results of these risk evaluations, the EPA may then be required to ban one or all of these chemicals from the marketplace.

IPC will review the scoping document and actively participate in the risk evaluation process.

On December 16, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a final rule which extends the government’s window for citing employers for failing to record on-the-job injuries or illnesses from six months to five years. The rule overturns a 2012 federal appeals court ruling, commonly called Volks II, which upheld a six-month statute of limitations on citations.

The rule will take effect January 18, 2017.

IPC, along with a coalition of industry groups, opposed the rule, citing that OSHA lacked the statutory authority to override the original six-month limit contained in the OSHA Act.

Last week, OSHA released a November 10 memorandum which summarized enforcement of a recordkeeping rule that was finalized in May 2016.

Under the memorandum, OSHA says its inspectors can cite employers for discouraging workers from reporting injuries and illnesses without identifying an employee who didn’t make a report. The inspector only has to identify a worker who “would be deterred or discouraged” from making a report in the future.

The rule, issued May 12, requires employers to have “reasonable” procedures for reporting on-the-job injuries and illnesses (81 Fed. Reg. 29,624).

IPC, along with a coalition of industry groups known as the Coalition for Workplace Safety, filed comments opposing the rule.

Four more substances will be added to the REACH candidate list in January after ECHA’s Member State Committee unanimously agreed they should be designated as substances of very high concern (SVHC). This will bring the total number of substances on the list to 173.

The four substances are bisphenol A, the perfluorinated chemical PFDA (nonadecafluorodecanoic acid) and its sodium and ammonium salts, 4-heptylphenol, branched and linear (4-HPbl), and 4-tert-pentylphenol (PTAP).

Two additional substances, 4-tert-butylphenol (PTBP) and trimellitic anhydride (TMA), were not unanimously supported for inclusion and will be submitted to the European Commission for consideration.

On, January 12, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a rule requiring one-time reporting and recordkeeping requirements on nanoscale chemical substances in the marketplace.

Nanoscale materials have special properties related to their small size such as greater strength and lighter weight, however, they may take on different properties than their conventionally-sized counterpart. Nanoparticles are being used in electronics manufacturing processes and materials.

For the first time, EPA is using the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to collect existing exposure and health and safety information on chemicals currently in the marketplace when manufactured or processed as nanoscale materials. Companies will be required to notify EPA regarding chemical identities, production volume, methods of manufacture; processing, use, exposure, and release information, and, available health and safety data. EPA will use the information to determine if any further action under TSCA is needed.

The rule, which requires reporting within one year, will take effect May 12.

The EU Commission and Member States continue to meet to discuss the disposition of RoHS exemption renewal requests submitted by industry in January 2015.  During their December 15, 2016 meeting in Brussels, the experts reviewed requests on: Lead as an alloying element in steel (Annex III exemption 6a); Lead as an alloying element in aluminum (Annex III exemption 6b); Lead as an alloying element in copper (Annex III exemption 6c); Lead in high melting temperature type solders (Annex III exemption 7a); Lead in a glass or ceramic other than dielectric ceramic in capacitors (Annex III exemption 7c-I), jointly with exemption request 2015-1; Lead as activator in the fluorescent powder (Annex III exemption 18b), jointly with exemption request 2015-3; Lead in solders for the soldering to machined through hole discoidal and planar array ceramic multilayer capacitors (Annex III exemption 24); and Lead in cermet-based trimmer potentiometer elements (Annex III exemption 34).

The Commission is currently working on preparing the draft legislative proposals for these and other exemptions) which will be sent to Member States for written consultation.  The drafts will likely be published in the spring; final legislative acts could be published in the Official Journal of the EU (OJEU) in the fall at the earliest. Under the EU RoHS2, all existing exemptions were set to expire by July 21, 2016. However, all exemptions for which industry submitted a renewal application will not expire until the EU Commission completes the current ongoing review of the applications.

Minutes of the meeting are available at European Commission’s website. 

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) announced earlier this week that the update of their guidance on Substances in Articles will not be published until July or August 2017.  ECHA had previously indicated that guidance would be released in early 2017.

The delay is needed to allow ECHA to evaluate the nearly 700 comments on its current draft.  Many of the comments received by ECHA requested that the guidance be streamlined and simplified with more focused examples. ECHA had indicated at the meeting that a separate guidance would be published for complex articles.

The guidance is being revised by ECHA to align the requirements for substances of very high concern (SVHCs) in articles with a European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling in 2015 which stated that the 0.1% threshold for notifying SVHCs in articles applies to each article incorporated as a component of a complex product, rather than to the entire article.

IPC comments on ECHA’s guidance can be viewed here.  IPC will host a panel discussion on complying with REACH Substances in Articles on Wednesday, February 15, 2017 as part of IPC APEX EXPO.

On January 23, 2017, the Chinese government published a list of industries, including computer, communications and electronic equipment manufacturing, that will be required to register under the new critical monitoring system outlined in November 2016.  The system will track companies’ air and water discharges, which may be taxed.

While more than 20 industries must register this year, computer, communications and electronic equipment manufacturers are included in the second wave of companies which must join the system by 2020.

IPC will continue to post updates as they become available.

IPC met last week with EPA senior staff to discuss our concerns with the recently published Hazardous Waste Generator Improvements Rule and the February 24 petition for review filed with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals by IPC and eight other trade associations.

Although EPA’s rule includes some common-sense updates that will bring greater efficiency and clarity to the Hazardous Waste Generator regulatory program, other aspects of the rule are quite draconian.  IPC and the other associations are especially concerned about a provision that will change the criteria under which a generator of hazardous waste can be treated as operating a RCRA Treatment, Storage and Disposal (TSDF) facility that is operating without a required permit. Under the new rule, failure to meet any one of EPA’s long list of ‘conditions for exemption’ could subject a generator to multiple violations and substantial penalties. Even a minor deviation in compliance would cause a generator to now be considered an illegal TSDF.

The meeting was held to elevate the issue with the new EPA transition team and to discuss options moving forward, including an agreement to put the petition for review lawsuit in abeyance while EPA and IPC discuss the possibility of EPA proposing changes to the rule.

On March 14, 2017, IPC filed comments on the EPA’s proposed regulations to “reset” the inventory by sorting the TSCA inventory into active and inactive chemicals.  The inventory reset is one of the implementing regulations under the “Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act” (LCSA) which amends the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

IPC’s comments support EPA’s proposal to have chemical manufacturers, who have the primary responsibility, to report first, followed by a voluntary period for processors to report substances that have not been placed on the preliminary active list by EPA or manufacturers.

IPC also encourages the EPA to limit the rulemaking to collecting data elements that are required by statute, clarify the definition of “processors,” and clarify the exclusion of reporting of chemicals in articles.

Yesterday, March 22, 2017, the Senate passed H.J. Res. 83, the Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to invalidate an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulation which was promulgated in December 2016 to overturn the 2012 D.C. Circuit Court “Volks” decision regarding the statute of limitations for recordkeeping violations.  The “Volks” CRA was previously passed in the House of Representatives on March 1, 2017. The CRA resolution will now go to President Trump who has indicated he will sign it.

In the 2012 “Volks” case, AKM LLC dba Volks Constructors v. Secretary of Labor, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously held that OSHA no longer could issue citations alleging that an employer failed, more than 6 months before, to record an employee injury on a log. The “Volks” CRA resolution would block OSHA’s Clarification of Employer’s Continuing Obligation to Make and Maintain an Accurate Record of Each Recordable Injury and Illness. Finalized on December 19, 2016, the rule extended to five years the explicit six-month statute of limitations on recordkeeping violations in the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970.

IPC, along with a coalition of industry groups, opposed the rule, citing that OSHA lacked the statutory authority to override the original six-month limit contained in the OSHA Act. IPC has actively supported the efforts of the coalition seeking to overturn the rule.

On March 27, 2017, IPC filed comments in response to a March 7, 2017 Department of Commerce (DOC) Request for Information on the Impact (RFI) of Federal Regulations on Domestic Manufacturing.

In our comments, IPC noted the burden imposed on manufacturers by regulations and our support of cost-effective, science-based regulations. IPC’s comments identified a number of specific regulations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that should be reviewed, withdrawn, or amended.

IPC will follow up on its submissions to ensure that as many concerns as possible are addressed.

IPC is commenting on its members’ behalf at three Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) public meetings on regulatory reform.  The meetings are being held to gather input on the implementation of  President Donald Trump’s February 24, 2017 Executive Order 13777 (EO 13777) on Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda.

IPC spoke on April 25 at the EPA Small Business Ombudsman’s meeting regarding two regulations that are particularly burdensome for small businesses: Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) reporting requirements for lead and the recently issued Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Hazardous Waste Generator (HWG) Improvements rule.

Regulatory Affairs Director, Fern Abrams, discusses regulatory reform issues at EPA Small Business Ombudsman’s meeting on April 25.

At the May 1 meeting hosted by the EPA Office for Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, IPC again highlighted concerns with the TRI rule, and IPC’s testimony at the upcoming Office of Land and Emergency Management will focus on the RCRA Definition of Solid Waste (DSW) rule issued in 2014, and the RCRA HWG Improvements.

EO 13777 establishes the policy of the United States to alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens placed on the American people. Among other things, it requires each agency to create a Regulatory Reform Task Force to evaluate existing regulations and to identify regulations that could be repealed, replaced or modified to make them less burdensome.

IPC will also be filing written comments before the May 15, 2017 deadline.  Members interested in filing comments should visit the EPA docket.

IPC filed comments with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on May 15, highlighting five EPA regulations that should be reformed:

• Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) reporting requirements for lead
• Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Hazardous Waste Generator (HWG) Improvements rule
• RCRA Definition of Solid Waste (DSW) rule issued in 2014
• RCRA regulations for electroplating sludge sent for recycling
• TSCA reporting of byproducts sent for recycling

The comments were filed in response to EPA request for input on the implementation of  President Donald Trump’s February 24, 2017 Executive Order 13777 (EO 13777) on Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda.

In addition to filing comments, IPC spoke at three EPA public meetings: On April 25 at the EPA Small Business Ombudsman’s meeting, a May 1 meeting hosted by the EPA Office for Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, and a May 9 meeting held by the Office of Land and Emergency Management.

EO 13777 establishes the policy of the United States to alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens placed on the American people. Among other things, it requires each agency to create a Regulatory Reform Task Force to evaluate existing regulations and to identify regulations that could be repealed, replaced or modified to make them less burdensome.