The California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) announced a new date for its public workshop on nanomaterials. State budget constraints forced the agency to reschedule the meeting from its original date of August 13. The new date is Wednesday, September 22, 2010. The workshop will be held at the U.S. EPA Region 9 office in San Francisco, California.

Persons who previously registered are not required to re-register. However, DTSC has circulated an email to registrants requesting confirmation of their plans to attend on the new date.

At the workshop, DTSC and EPA will discuss the results of the carbon nanotube (CNT) information call-in that DTSC recently completed, future activities by DTSC on other nanomaterial call-ins, and U.S. EPA efforts related to CNTs and future regulatory plans for other nanomaterials.

Additional information on this workshop will be posted at:

http://www.dtsc.ca.gov/TechnologyDevelopment/Nanotechnology/UpcomingSymposium.cfm

Register at:

http://www.dtsc.ca.gov/TechnologyDevelopment/Nanotechnology/nanotech_6_registration.cfm

If you have any questions, please contact Hamid Saebfar at (717) 818-6530 or Suzanne Davis at (916) 327-4206 for assistance.

To subscribe to or unsubscribe from the DTSC: Nanotechnology listserv or other listservs, please go to http://www.calepa.ca.gov/Listservs/dtsc/. For information on DTSC regulations, as well as other relevant developments go to http://www.dtsc.ca.gov/LawsRegsPolicies/index.cfm

Here's a link to a nice article that John DiLoreto wrote concerning the environmental, health & safety regulation of nanotechnology by individual states in the United States. http://www.nanotech-now.com/columns/?article=484

Enjoy!

On June 23, 2010, the California agency, the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), released a draft of the Green Chemistry Regulation for Safer Consumer Products. Incredibly, in the draft, DTSC proposes to redefine the nanoscale as: “Nanoscale” means one or more dimensions of the order of 1000 nanometers or less. " Yes, that's 1,000 nm you're reading!

Some other nano-related definitions that may interest you include the following:

“Nanomaterial” means any form of an engineered chemical, substance or material that is composed of a discrete nanostructure, which has one or more dimensions at the nanoscale.

“Nanostructure” means any engineered structure or feature that is composed of discrete functional parts, either internally or at the surface at nanoscale.

If you want to know more about the regulation or how to comment on it - comments are due by July 15 - point your browser to the following URL: http://www.dtsc.ca.gov/PollutionPrevention/GreenChemistryInitiative/gc_draft_regs.cfm.

The regulation can be downloaded directly at: http://www.dtsc.ca.gov/PollutionPrevention/GreenChemistryInitiative/upload/Safer-Product-Alternative-Regulations-6-23-10.pdf

Cheers!

On June 23, the lead agency implementing California’s Green Chemistry Initiative, the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), published on its website a draft of the Regulation for Safer Consumer Products. According to the DTSC announcement, the draft will be the subject of two additional informal, half-day public workshops on July 7 from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and July 8 from 1:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. Both workshops will be held in the Cal/EPA Building, 1001 I Street, Sacramento, Byron Sher Auditorium. Public comments on the draft regulation are due by July 15, 2010.

Under the draft regulation, DTSC would create a list of chemicals that are “toxic” and can harm people or the environment. Products containing those chemicals would be prioritized based upon such factors as the volume in commerce, the extent of public exposure and how the product is eventually disposed. Manufacturers of those products would perform an “alternatives assessment” to determine if a viable safer alternative is available.

DTSC has stated that it may revise the draft based on comments received. It would release the revised draft following the July 15 comment deadline. The formal Administrative Procedures Act (APA) rulemaking process will begin with the release of that draft. The APA process calls for public hearings and a 45-day public comment period. DTSC will release specific information about the APA process when the final draft regulation is available for review.

According to DTSC’s announcement, the draft regulation and related documents can be found at:

http://www.dtsc.ca.gov/PollutionPrevention/GreenChemistryInitiative/gc_draft_regs.cfm

This past Monday, June 21, at the Ronald Reagan Center in Washington, DC, EPA held the 2010 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards ceremony. This year’s winners include BASF; The Dow Chemical Company; Merck & Co., Inc.; Codexis, Inc.; Clarke; LS9, Inc.; and James C. Liao, Ph.D. Additional details regarding the Challenge Awards Program and this year’s winners are provided below.

Background on the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards Program

For those readers that are less familiar with the Challenge Awards Program, EPA offers the following description on its website:

“The Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards Program is an opportunity for individuals, groups, and organizations to compete for annual awards in recognition of innovations in cleaner, cheaper, smarter chemistry. The Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards Program provides national recognition of outstanding chemical technologies that incorporate the principles of green chemistry into chemical design, manufacture, and use, and that have been or can be utilized by industry in achieving their pollution prevention goals.

The Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards Program invites nominations that describe the technical benefits of a green chemistry technology as well as human health and environmental benefits. The Awards Program is open to individuals, groups, and nongovernmental organizations, both nonprofit and for profit. The nominated green chemistry technology must have reached a significant milestone within the past five years in the United States (e.g., been researched, demonstrated, implemented, applied, patented, etc.).

Nominations received for the awards are judged by an independent panel of technical experts convened by the American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute. Typically five awards are given annually to industry and government sponsors, an academic investigator, and a small business.”

According to EPA, the awards are typically granted in the following five categories:

• Small Business: A small business* for a green chemistry technology in any of the three focus areas.
• Academic: An academic investigator for a technology in any of the three focus areas.
• Focus Area 1: An industry sponsor for a technology that uses greener synthetic pathways.
• Focus Area 2: An industry sponsor for a technology that uses greener reaction conditions.
• Focus Area 3: An industry sponsor for a technology that includes the design of greener chemicals.

* A small business is defined here as one with annual sales of less than $40 million, including all domestic and foreign sales by the company, its subsidiaries, and its parent company.

This Year’s Winners by Category

EPA’s website list this year’s winners, a summary of their innovations and their benefits, as well as a podcast overview of each innovation that is narrated by Dr. Richard Engler of EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics. The winners include:

• Greener Synthetic Pathways Award
  The Dow Chemical Company
  BASF
  Innovative, Environmentally Benign Production of Propylene Oxide via Hydrogen Peroxide (summary / podcast)
• Greener Reaction Conditions Award
  Merck & Co., Inc.
  Codexis, Inc.
  Greener Manufacturing of Sitagliptin Enabled by an Evolved Transaminase (summary / podcast)
• Designing Greener Chemicals Award
  Clarke
  Natular^TM Larvicide: Adapting Spinosad for Next-Generation Mosquito Control (summary / podcast)
• Small Business Award
  LS9, Inc.
  Microbial Production of Renewable Petroleum^TM Fuels and Chemicals (summary / podcast)
• Academic Award
  James C. Liao, Ph.D.
  Easel Biotechnologies, LLC
  University of California, Los Angeles
  Recycling Carbon Dioxide to Biosynthesize Higher Alcohols (summary / podcast)

Last week, on Friday, June 11, I attended the ABA conference: "Chemicals Regulation: REACHing for TSCA Reform." In my opinion, the conference was a success. It was well-attended by a range of stakeholders and the speakers' topics were generally interesting. Blake Biles did a fantastic job in his opening remarks setting the context in which TSCA was passed in 1976 and the challenges that EPA has faced implementing the statue. All in all, I think the conference was worth the investment.

The conference provided a brief overview of the Congressional bills to modify TSCA and more detail regarding the role of states in chemicals regulation, the recent green chemistry initiatives, and some of the legal issues that go beyond regulatory compliance. If anyone would like a copy of the agenda, which includes a biography (of sorts) of supplementary reading material, please let me know. The suite of conference materials is probably available from the ABA.

I was a little disappointed that the speakers did not cover the mechanics of the new bills in any detail, however. Presumably this was because they felt that it was premature to do so. In other words, they probably expect the final legislation to differ from what's currently proposed. Based on what I'm hearing, I would generally agree with that conclusion. However, the recent convergence of chemical industry executives on Capitol Hill suggests that there may be some residual concern about the bills passing this session in something similar to their present form, so more discussion of the mechanics would have been helpful to some attendees, I'm sure.

About Me

Chemical Watch is reporting that certain CNTs and nanosilver may be prohibited under future amendments to the Restrictrion on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive. An excerpt from the CW article is included below.

"The European Parliament's rapporteur for the RoHS recast, MEP Jill Evans, has agreed not to pursue her proposed ban on all brominated and chlorinated flame retardants, PVC, chlorinated plasticisers and three phthalates – DEHP, BBP and DBP.

Parliament's Environment Committee votes next week on proposed amendments to the European Commission's proposal for revising the Directive on the restriction of hazardous substances (RoHS) in electrical and electronic equipment.

Although halogenated substances and phthalates look likely to escape inclusion on the banned substances list, the Committee is likely to agree that nanosilver and long multi-walled carbon nanotubes should be added. In effect, there would be no threshold, with equipment prohibited from the market if it contained either of them at “detectable levels”."

. . .

The Committee is due to vote on the amendments to the RoHS recast on 2 June. This week's deal is unlikely to change, but further changes cannot be ruled out."

For those nanotechnology enthusiasts who are also interested in chemicals management in the United States and beyond, feel free to check out my blog, "The Green Chemistry Law Report: Legal Developments, News & Events in Chemicals Management."

http://blog.verdantlaw.com

Best!

Phil