Government▼Watch China tackles toxic electronics The Chinese government is moving toward implementing a measure that would ban the use of at least six toxic substances in electrical and electronics products manufactured in or imported into the country. U.S. observers familiar with the rule making are skeptical that it will meet its ambitious time frame, however. The regulatory proposal by China’s Ministry of Information Industry (MII) currently calls for mercury, lead, cadmium, chromium, polybrominated biphenol (PBB), and polybrominated dipheynl ethers (PBDEs) to be replaced by nontoxic substances by July 1, 2006. The measure is significant because China is the world’s top producer of cellular phones and color TVs and the third-largest manufacturer of personal computers, according to the University of Maryland’s Electronic Products and Systems Center. This is one of a number of product stewardship laws that the national Chinese government is proposing, following the enactment of the Clean Production Promotion Law on June 29, 2002, says Richard Ferris, a partner at Beveridge & Diamond, an international environmental law firm, and director of the firm’s China Group. Over the last few years, the country has rapidly shifted from endof-pipe laws to measures that target products and processes, says Ferris’s colleague Hongjun Zhang, a former legislative director of the Environmental Protection and Natural Resource Conservation Committee in China’s National People’s Congress. China has been under a great deal of pressure to improve the safety of its electronics dismantling operations over the last year because of publicity over Basel Convention violations due to its acceptance of electronic junk from around the world, says Ted Smith, executive director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. Smith says he is skeptical about the govern© 2003 American Chemical Society
ment’s ability to enforce the end-oflife aspects of the proposed legislation because of vast corruption in the electronics recycling industry. China’s goal of eliminating these toxics from electronics manufacturing processes in three years “may be much too optimistic,” says Dick Bersin, a retired electronics industry executive who is now working to promote sustainable development in China. Implementing the goals will require major changes to the electronics manufacturing infrastructure that would be hard to implement so quickly, he explains. Because of the complexity and variety of China’s electronics industry, the challenge of implementing such a ban would be daunting, Ferris says. He predicts that MII will rethink the proposal’s ambitious deadline and push it back. —KELLYN BETTS
Northeastern states move to regulate carbon dioxide Agreement has been reached among 10 northeastern states to begin negotiating a carbon dioxide (CO2) capand-trade program that, if enacted, could be ready to launch in 2008. Although it isn’t certain that all 10 states—Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont— will participate, the cap-and-trade initiative will be the first in North America and could create momentum for a national program to curb emissions of the greenhouse gas CO2, environmentalists say. The proposed cap-and-trade scheme for CO2 emissions from power plants will be based on the successful sulfur dioxide program to reduce acid rain under the Clean Air Act, announced New York Governor George Pataki (R) on July 24. Because CO2 is not regulated as a pollutant under federal law, each state will have to enact its own mix of laws or ad-
ministrative rules to implement the regime, says Anne Reynolds, air and energy program director at Environmental Advocates of New York, a nonprofit group. The program is in direct opposition to federal policy, since the Bush Administration refuses to recognize CO2 as a pollutant and is opposed to a federal cap-and-trade program. Despite being a member of Bush’s policial party, Pataki sent a letter in June inviting other northeastern governors to join the program because cutting emissions will generate economic and environmental benefits for the states, says Dale Bryk, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). But first, state officials must commit to a meaningful cap, which won’t necessarily be the same for each state, Reynolds says. For instance, through normal business practices, New York power plant CO2 emissions are projected to fall 17% below 1990 levels by 2010. To go beyond “business as usual”, New York could cut CO2 emissions by 25% below 1990 levels by 2010 without raising electricity prices, according to a report from the Greenhouse Gas Task Force, an advisory body convened by Pataki. On the other hand, a meaningful cap for Pennsylvania, which relies heavily on coal, might be to hold emissions at 1990 levels by 2010, according to Ashok Gupta, director of NRDC’s air and energy program. Although many other issues remain to be hammered out, such as how to allocate CO2 emission allowances to individual plants, Pataki hopes to achieve agreement on a trading framework by 2005 and have rules in place by 2008. —JANET PELLEY
OCTOBER 1, 2003 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY ■ 351 A
