On July 8, 2015, the European Parliament (EP) passed a resolution calling for REACH and other chemical laws to be excluded from the scope of the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The European Parliament calls on the EU Commission “to recognise that where the EU and the US have very different rules, there will be no agreement, such as on … REACH and its implementation… and therefore not to negotiate on these issues.” They are also demanding that TTIP “not affect standards that have yet to be set such as … [on] endocrine disrupting chemicals…”
This EP resolution is a direct response to efforts by chemical manufacturers and the US Government to stall the development of stronger measures on toxic chemicals in the EU, and to support proposals in the US that would lock US legislation into 1970’s-era standards, freezing the current differences in chemical regulatory regimes.
In the EU, chemical and pesticide manufacturers have used TTIP to fiercely lobby against stronger protections in the EU from endocrine (hormone) disrupting chemicals (EDCs). The US government has also used TTIP’s regulatory objectives to pressure the EU to abandon stronger measures for these chemicals of concern. But the toxic concerns are not limited to EDCs. In 2014, NGOs uncovered efforts by chemical manufacturers to use TTIP to effectively erase the no-data, no-market principle of REACH, the EU’s preeminent chemical control provision.
In the US, pending industry-supported bills before Congress to “reform” the country’s broken system for regulating industrial chemicals (TSCA) bear no meaningful resemblance to stronger, more protective counterpart laws in the EU, despite repeated calls for closer regulatory cooperation and greater regulatory coherence between the two blocks by chemical industry federations.
This double-talk illustrates how TTIP would not reduce regulatory differences on chemicals between the EU and US in order to produce economic benefits. As proposed, TTIP would not elevate standards of toxic protection on both sides of the Atlantic when opportunities present themselves, but rather create new opportunities to weaken, slow, or stop the development and implementation of stronger rules for toxic chemicals.
You can read our response to the American Chemistry Council’s defense of their secretive proposals, here, and decide for yourself if TTIP negotiations are headed in the right direction.
Originally posted on September 1, 2015.