Thanks for the plug Harvey.
Yes it is attracting some high level visitors. I have fired up the
http://www.rohsusa.com blog again after a 3 month "vacation" - although I
guess as people know I have been somewhat more vocal in the trade press(If
you believe in something let your voice be heard is how I was brought up!.
The interesting thing is that I have not heard of a single case of materials
being impounded challenged, taken to court which is somewhat remarkable. I
cannot believe that everything shipping into Europe is either compliant or
exempted!
I have on the blog this morning asked people to write in with ADVANTAGES of
lead free soldering. It should be quite amusing since the only advantage I
have seen in print to date is - and I quote "it does not wet as well as
tin/lead solder".................
Well if it has that going for it I wonder why people are worried about
reliability....8-)
John
Http://www.rohsusa.com
http://www.rohsusa.com/blog
(funny things I didn't hear it
-----Original Message-----
From: Leadfree [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Harvey Miller
Sent: Monday, October 09, 2006 2:31 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [LF] The fight against RoHS lead ban is moving to a higher level,
thanks to Lawrence Kogan JD, LLM and
the ITSSD. Check out-- [log in to unmask]
Oh, and thanks to John Burke. His web site, <www.rohsusa.com>
is attracting some high level people, such as The INSTITUTE FOR TRADE
STANDARDS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT. The issue is sciece vs. emotion.
U.S. Should Not Import European Laws
Milloy Op-Ed at FoxNews.com
by Steven J. Milloy
November 18, 2005
As globalization fosters economic growth around the world, Americans
should be vigilant of an unintended consequence: the imposition on U.S.
businesses and consumers of the non-science-based,
environmentalist-promoted, European Union-embraced standard known as the
"precautionary principle."
The precautionary principle is the subject of a new Washington Legal
Foundation report entitled "Exporting Precaution: How Europe's Risk-Free
Regulatory Agenda Threatens American Free Enterprise." Authored by
Lawrence Kogan of the Institute for Trade Standards and Sustainable
Development, the report describes how "international bureaucrats and
influential activist groups use the precautionary principle as a vehicle
to diminish America's competitive position in the global economy and
advance special interest agendas hostile to free enterprise and
technology."
Kogan aptly calls the precautionary principle "regulation without
representation."
The precautionary principle is a scheme for establishing environmental,
health and safety regulations that are based on irrational fears rather
than empirical science.
Under the precautionary principle, activities, products and substances may
be banned or restricted if it is merely possible that they or the
processes used for their manufacture, formulation or assembly might cause
health or environmental harm under some unknown and unspecified future
circumstances. In other words: It focuses on purely hypothetical risks
rather than actual hazards.
The precautionary principle inherently rejects scientific and cost-benefit
analysis as bases for regulation. It is arbitrariness unleashed in the
hands of powerful government regulators and others who have no use for
facts or common sense.
Although the European Union expressly admitted that no evidence indicates
biotech foods are less safe than conventional foods, the EU's
precautionary principle-based Biosafety Protocol was used to block more
than $2 billion worth of U.S. biotech crop exports from 1998 to 2005,
according to Kogan.
The EU's Cosmetics Directive bans the use of chemicals called "phthalates"
in cosmetic products even though no scientific data suggest that consumer
exposure to phthalates in cosmetics and personal care products poses a
human health risk. By also banning animal testing on most cosmetics prior
to consumer use, Kogan says, a strictly applied Cosmetics Directive would
run counter to U.S. laws and regulations mandating animal testing of
cosmetics classified as over-the-counter drugs and require reformulation
of almost all current cosmetics products.
The EU also intends to make the garbage pail obsolete by presuming that
all trash is hazardous. Under the precautionary principle, EU businesses
must develop "life cycle management principles" that include "take-back"
provisions under which businesses must reclaim and dispose of all new
products put on the market upon their obsolescence, mostly at business'
expense.
The EU also applies the precautionary principle to industrial chemicals,
disinfectants, preservatives and global warming. Science is out;
capriciousness is in.
The tangible impact of the precautionary principle is immense.
"The administrative, financial and legal burdens imposed by EU
precaution-based environmental regulations are cumulatively equivalent to
a hidden business tax that, as of 1999, constituted as much as 15 percent
of the new capital invested by certain European industry sectors," writes
Kogan.
The precautionary principle may help to explain why EU nations lag behind
the U.S. in economic growth. According to a June 2004 report from the
Swedish think tank Timbro, U.S. gross domestic product (the measure of the
value of the goods and services produced by a country in a given year),
was 17 percent higher than the nearest European country, Switzerland.
There are also intangible costs associated with the precautionary
principle. Intellectual property rights are compromised because
confidential information must be shared among producers, intermediaries
and distributors in a product's vertical supply chain. Labeling steers
consumers to bureaucrat- and environmentalist-preferred products, such as
those labeled "eco-friendly," rather than politically incorrect brand name
goods.
It doesn't take too much to imagine the harm the precautionary principle
could do if imported into the U.S. as a legal standard. Existing standards
of negligence, strict liability, products liability and public nuisance
might go out the window in favor of legal outcomes like the $253 million
verdict against Merck in a recent Vioxx trial.
Although Merck had complied with all legal requirements for testing and
labeling and there was no scientific evidence supporting the verdict,
emotional jurors nevertheless wanted to send Merck and the drug industry a
precautionary principle-tyoe message: 'Stop doing the minimum to put your
drug on the market," Kogan points out.
And all this may be coming our way.
Kogan describes how American and European environmental and so-called
"social responsibility" groups operated fear campaigns to generate public
pressure for the EU to implement the precautionary principle. Now, these
same groups are using strict EU laws and regulations as a platform for
promoting similar regulatory change in the U.S.
Large multinational corporations, primary instruments of globalization
that are subject to EU regulation, are now trying to import those same
regulations back to the U.S. General Electric, for example, is subject to
the EU-adopted Kyoto Protocol, and is actively advocating that Congress
enact global warming regulation. Significantly hampered by its
self-inflicted wound, the EU supports U.S. adoption of the precautionary
principle as a means to become more economically competitive with American
products and services.
We ought to take action "to extinguish the complex threat posed by the
precautionary principle," Kogan writes. "The stakes are very high.
America's very enterprise system, individual freedoms and international
interests may be hanging in the balance."
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