Chemical Law Will Influence Business
The European Union has unveiled new laws meant to restrict companies from manufacturing harmful chemicals. The laws require that a chemical must be comprehensively proven safe before it can enter the marketplace. The new requirements will be phased in over the course of ten years, and they will have significant impact worldwide. The story is covered by the Washington Post.
As the article notes, the EU has adopted a regulatory stance that emphasizes consumer safety over short term profits for chemical corporations. Whereas the EU’s laws mean that a chemical must be proven safe to be marketed, chemicals in the US are marketed first and then banned or restricted only if the companies marketing them report health hazards. Then government agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are responsible for carrying out further testing and taking regulatory action - yet the agencies are underfunded, and undermined by industry lobbyists. Only five of the 80,000 commercial chemicals in the US market have been banned by the EPA. The government has little or no information on most of those chemicals.
For the sake of human health and the environment, the EU’s new rules are positive. Since most chemical companies operate worldwide - and can’t afford to lose the business of the EU’s 27 countries and 500 million people - they will need to seek out safer ways to produce products, perform greater testing, and retool their factories. Since shareholder advocates have long been pushing companies to get toxic chemicals out of products, the new regulations will provide strong economic impetus for change.
