USA: Regulatory and legislative focal points
Heidi McAuliffe, vice president of Government Affairs at the American Coatings Association, shares insight into some of the regulatory and legislative issues that the U.S. coatings industry is facing.
Will the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s PFAS regulatory agenda affect paint and coatings manufacturers?
Heidi McAuliffe: It’s important to note that PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — are a vaguely defined chemical grouping of fluorinated chemicals used as an additive in wide array of products. With growing public concern about potential hazards of PFAS in drinking water and other sources, regulators, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — as well as state lawmakers — have proposed and/or initiated a variety of programs to evaluate and eventually regulate those substances.
One of EPA’s proposed regulations would designate certain PFAS as hazardous substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. As a result, industries — including paints and coatings — municipal utilities, and federal facilities will be challenged with conducting site remediation and disposal of existing stocks of firefighting foam and products onsite containing PFAS substances from legacy industrial uses. Additionally, they will have to report releases of some PFAS chemicals above a specified threshold.
What other activity related to PFAS is the American Coatings Association monitoring for industry impact?
McAuliffe: Well, in Fall 2021, EPA released its PFAS Strategic Roadmap, a three-year plan describing specific regulations, with deadlines and research the agency plans to undertake to understand where additional controls may be needed, and a course of action based on evaluation of individual PFAS substances. Among those EPA regulatory initiatives are new rules setting final drinking water limits for PFAS, expected to be released by fall 2023. ACA is monitoring that federal initiative, but also closely watching proposals related to PFAS at the state level. Several states passed PFAS legislation during the 2021 legislative session, including Maine, Connecticut, Nevada, West Virginia, and Illinois.
While many of these laws related to firefighting foam or food packaging, none went further than Maine, which banned the use of intentionally added PFAS in more product categories — carpets, rugs, and fabric treatments by 2023 — but importantly, by 2030, all products that contain intentionally added PFAS are banned unless a decision has been made by the environmental agency that the use of PFAS was unavoidable. Given the proliferation of these proposed bans across state legislatures, ACA is engaging in advocacy to ensure no undue burdens for industry.
Are there other regulatory or legislative trends you’re seeing that might concern industry?
McAuliffe: Extender Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation was prevalent across the states in 2021 and will continue to garner focus. Many of these EPR proposals require producers to manage the end-of-life of products introduced into commerce, including the products’ packaging as means of reducing the packaging waste stream and shifting the cost burden from state government to industry.
ACA and its industry are leaders in the EPR space with its vanguard PaintCare program — a true product stewardship model that ensures environmentally responsible end-of-life management for leftover paint, while relieving local and state governments of their economic burden without creating new, expensive local or state-run programs. Because of ACA’s PaintCare paint product stewardship program, last year, ACA was able to mitigate further burdens on industry in two states where PaintCare has longstanding programs. ACA’s engagement during the legislative process on bills enacted in Maine and Oregon establishing EPR programs for plastic containers will save the industry potentially millions of dollars in fees that will be assessed annually.
While these bills differed in their construct, both would impose significant fees on paint manufacturers and are completely financed by a fee. ACA succeeded in incorporating language in both bills that exempts containers for architectural paint, subject to a paint stewardship program, because of PaintCare operations in both Maine and Oregon. ACA is working to ensure that divergent EPR proposals arising across the states recognize the work conducted by product stewardship organizations like PaintCare and don’t impose undue regulatory or financial burdens on industry. The association and industry are working to broaden adoption of its landmark environmental stewardship program beyond the 11 jurisdictions where the program has been adopted.
