Government▼Watch
Two controversial European Union (EU) directives calling for extended producer responsibility in the electrical and electronic appliance arena are likely to have a dramatic impact on U.S. companies. EU officials are expected to sign the legislation into law in January. Under the new rules, manufacturers will be required by 2007 to take back equipment that has reached the end of its useful life and reuse or recycle between 50 and 75% of the parts, depending on the type of appliance. Moreover, the EU will ban the use of lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, and the brominated flame retardants polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) from these products by July 2006. Exemptions are likely for applications for which there is no technical replacement available, but that will be decided on a case-by-case basis, according to the EU. Because all companies doing business in Europe will have to comply with these new design requirements, U.S. environmentalists say wholesale changes in manufacturing processes are also likely in the United States, where the electronics industry has been loathe to adopt end-of-life product stewardship programs. Jennifer Guhl, director of international trade policy for the American Electronics Association, admits as much. “The U.S. high-tech industry exported $50 billion in goods to the EU in 2000, and every one of those products will be captured under the scope of this directive,” she says, adding that “it’s unlikely that companies will produce lead-free products and market them only in the EU.” The United States could still challenge the legislation before the World Trade Organization as it has threatened to do in the past (Environ. Sci. Technol. 1999, 33, 228A–229A), but © 2003 American Chemical Society
such a challenge would face an uphill fight, says Bette Fishbein, a senior fellow at Inform, a nonprofit research organization. “The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has looked at the trade implications of extended producer responsibility programs and didn’t find them to adversely affect trade or to be discriminatory because they apply to everyone in the same way,” she notes. Besides, Japanese companies are already way ahead of the curve in terms of complying with the EU rules, says Ted Smith, executive director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, a grassroots environmental group. “A number of those companies already produce lead-free and halogen-free products,” he says. Moreover, as e-waste take-back schemes are implemented in Europe, Smith predicts that pressure will grow for companies to do the same in the United States. —KRIS CHRISTEN
Mosquitoes take a bite out of stormwater plans
ties use to address stormwater, and tens of thousands exist nationwide, according to EPA officials. Because they are typically designed to allow collected water to drain slowly, often holding water for days, it’s logical that they may be creating potential habitat for mosquitoes to breed, admits Normand Goulet, senior environmental planner for the Northern Virginia Regional Commission. As a result, local officials are finding it harder to gain public acceptance for new retention ponds, or any other stormwater structure that involves standing water. “There have been some who [suggest] we should be draining wetlands,” says Julie Sibbing, with the National Wildlife Federation. But is there a connection between West Nile virus and stormwater management? “Right now, there are more questions than answers,” Goulet says, adding, “as much as we want to minimize stormwater aspects, there could be severe [environmental] consequences.” For example, without these controls, erosion and nonpoint source pollutant loadings to streams would be much higher. “There continues to be a tremendous amount of value associated with the use of these ponds in terms of
As new U.S. EPA stormwater regulations take effect in March, public fear over the rapid spread of the mosquitoborne West Nile virus is directing the spotlight on stormwater controls and the role they might be playing as potential breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Under the new regulations, small and mid-sized communities will now join cities in developing and implementing programs to curb stormwater runoff. Controls can include Mosquito-borne disease threatens new regulations. anything from retention ponds and drainage ditches to artificially created stormwater treatment, as well as other wetlands and rain gardens. benefits such as flood control,” agrees Retention ponds, however, are the Benjamin Grumbles, deputy assistant most common control that communiadministrator for EPA’s Office of Water. JANUARY 1, 2003 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY ■ 13 A
DIGITAL VISION
EU e-waste rules driving change in United States
General revenue subsidizes dwindling Superfund Funding for cleaning up heavily polluted sites in the United States under the Superfund program is shifting from the polluters to the general taxpayers, according to state and regional Superfund project managers. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA, commonly known as Superfund) created a trust containing taxes from oil, gas, and chemical industries to fund cleanups when the polluter is unknown or cannot pay. But Congress has not renewed the tax since 1995. Down from its high of $3.6 billion in 1995, an estimated
$28 million will remain in the trust at the end of this year. “Without the [Superfund] money available, the cleanups will slow down and human health and the environment remain at risk,” says Julie Wolk, an environmental health advocate for U.S. Public Interest Research Group. States cannot afford more than the required 10% of a cleanup. Wolk says
October report from EPA’s Office of Inspector General. In the report, Region 1 officials commented that lack of funding means “ecological damage continues.” Creosote threatens groundwater in Region 5 and affects wetlands in Region 6. EPA’s Office of Emergency and Remedial Response lacks resources to fund all requests and “stated that these regional examples posed lower environmental risks relative to other sites funded by EPA in [fiscal year] 2002”, according to the report. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who requested the report, has 20 tripartisan sponsors on her bill to reinstate the Superfund tax. Staffers in her office describe the Bush Administration’s resistance to this tax as a corporate handout, Superfund cleanups may be increasingly funded with taxplacing the burden of payer monies. potentially increased 18% of the Superfund program costs cancer risks, increased birth defects, came from general taxpayer revenue and actual monitoring of polluted sites in 1996 and will rise to 54% in 2003, on the public. A spokesperson for the even though there will be nearly half American Petroleum Institute says inthe cleanups. dustry has paid more than it polluted, EPA regions will not receive any so if the responsible party cannot be of their $92 million request for seven found, money for cleanup should health hazard sites on Superfund’s come from general tax revenue. National Priority List, according to an —RACHEL PETKEWICH
Canada buys greenhouse gas reductions The first government program in North America to purchase greenhouse gas emission reductions from the private sector was launched in Canada on October 17. With provincial cooperation, the Canadian government expects to purchase 18 megatons of CO2 equivalents by 2007, roughly 8% of the cuts that Canada must make to meet its pledge under the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period from 2008 to 2012. The Pilot Emission Removals, Reductions and Learnings (PERRL) program has budgeted $8.4 million to purchase reductions over the next five years from landfill gas capture, geological CO2 sequestration, renewable energy projects, and biological carbon sinks. “PERRL provides concrete incentives to reduce emissions and will help Canadian [provincial and federal] governments and businesses learn about emissions trading,” says Steve Blight, acting director of regulatory and economic analysis for Environment Canada. Canada is following the lead of Australia, which already has a full-fledged emission reduction purchase program in place, Blight says. Participants will submit bids proposing a fixed price per ton for their projects and the Canadian government will purchase greenhouse gas reductions from the lowest bidders first until
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EPA will continue to promote their use, but plans to offer more guidance on proper design, construction, operation, and maintenance over the coming months, Grumbles says. Goulet says his agency is also undergoing “a whole rethink towards complete ecosystems,” something that pleases environmentalists. “If you’ve got flowing water and a good, diverse ecosystem in that wet pond, you’re not going to have a problem with mosquitoes” as natural predators help to control their populations, Goulet says. “West Nile is here to stay, and we’re going to have to learn to live with it and learn how to control it.” KRIS CHRISTEN
the budget is used up, Blight says. Emissions reductions purchased through PERRL must be real, measurable, verified, not required by regulations, and must start after, not before, a purchase agreement is made. Program requirements call for a third-party audit, conducted by a professional engineer or certified accountant, to verify emission removals or reductions. PERRL is a very welcome policy tool, although Environment Canada can’t guarantee that projects are “additional”, in other words, go above and beyond any reductions that would have taken place as a normal course of business, says Matthew Bramley, director of climate change for the Pembina Institute, a research organization. “Additionality” is difficult to prove without a detailed economic investigation, and this is why trading is problematic, he says. Meanwhile, the volume of CO2 allowances traded on the international market more than doubled between 2001 and the first six months of 2002 to 24 metric tons of CO2 equivalent, according to a World Bank report released October 21. The price ranged from $3 per ton in developing countries to $10 per ton in industrialized countries, reports State of the Carbon Market, which can be read at www.worldbank.org. —JANET PELLEY
