It has been widely accepted by forum subscribers that RoHS is about politics, not the environment, since there has been no documentation supporting the claim that the legislation will avert any cases of poisoning. Last October I posted an item with the the title EU Environmental Politics, based on some news articles. Here's another posting, relating to internal political conflict between the European Parliament and the Technical Adaptation Committee on the subject of exemptions. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Some Parliament members didn't care for the exemptions that the TAC had granted (not green enough and too concerned about the cost of compliance), and told the TAC to "re-examine" them. Last week, the TAC chose to re-affirm their decisions rather than to bow to Parliament. It is too soon to know how Parliament will respond to this apparent insubordination, but the conflict has obvious implications for manufacturers who are counting on one or more of the RoHS exemptions as a part of their compliance plans. At this late date, should any of the exemptions vanish, the issue won't just be cost to comply, it will be ability to comply in time.

One example of a requested exemption that I suspect will be challenged (in spite of numerous supporting claims): use of Pb in tin plating used as a termination finish on components at risk of developing short circuits due to tin whiskers, since lead-free finishes other than pure tin are possible, and even commercially available.

In discussions of environmental regulation, the activists know that the industrialists will respond with cries of pain from the cost of compliance. This is their "gotcha", because they are operating from the premise that if a regulation is needed, then any expression of concern about cost just reinforces their strongly held belief that their greedy adversaries are willing to put corporate profits ahead of public health. (As I've discussed before, the activists are no less greedy, willing to promote contributions at the expense of truth. Their goal is to minimize risk - as they perceive it - regardless of cost, even though it is the people whom they purport to represent who will have to bear the cost.) It is a trap that industry falls into almost every time. Much better would be to avoid all mention of cost and to show that the proposed regulation does not add value or that it would make things worse. This was discussed in a number of postings under the heading of the precautionary principle, which the activists mis-apply when it suits their need.

I have copied below two recent publicly available news items, and show links to their sources.

Trouble looming over RoHS ban exemptions  <http://www.envirocentre.ie/news.asp?id=31&cid=1211> http://www.envirocentre.ie/news.asp?id=31&cid=1211

The European Commission has published the technical advice it received before proposing a series of exemptions to an EU ban on hazardous substances in electronics manufacture. The exemptions look increasingly likely to be challenged by the European parliament's environment committee.

The study on alternative substances in specific applications was required under the restrictions on hazardous substances (RoHS) directive. EU member states drew on it last year to back the exemptions - only for the Commission to rescind their decision after a technical hiccup denied MEPs their right of scrutiny over the plans.

National experts meet again at a technical adaptation committee (TAC) on 16 March to reconsider the exemptions, along with a second batch proposed in December.

However, European parliament sources claim that that Era's recommendations are at least partly based on the commercial viability of alternatives - an aspect not recognised by the RoHS legislation. The assembly's environment committee is scheduled to discuss the issue next week.

Perhaps sensing a parliamentary challenge, the Commission has drafted guidelines for future exemption requests by firms facing the RoHS ban. In it they stress that higher cost of alternatives will not be considered a sufficient reason for leniency.

Meanwhile the Commission is to resubmit to the TAC a draft decision on maximum limits for hazardous impurities in electronics components - again because of an error that prevented parliamentary scrutiny.

The Commission had been on the point of approving the decision - which has split industry and member states - after ministers declined to intervene following an inconclusive discussion last year.

Source: ENDS Environment Daily 

EU TAC Defies Parliament to Press on with Exemptions  <http://www.europeanleadfree.net/pooled/articles/BF_NEWSART/view.asp?Q=BF_NEWSART_138816> http://www.europeanleadfree.net/pooled/articles/BF_NEWSART/view.asp?Q=BF_NEWSART_138816

Release date: 23 Mar 2005

A EU Commission TAC meeting in March 2005 has reaffirmed its original decision to allow a set of RoHS exemptions, defying the EU Parliament who passed a resolution earlier in the month calling for them to 're-examine' their work. 

In February 2005, the EU Parliament challenged all of the 'decisions' made by the Commission, representing member state governments, via the TAC since RoHS enactment, on the basis that they had not been duly consulted. An earlier Parliament resolution sponsored by the campaign group EEB, demanded that the TAC 're-examine' its December 2004 decision on exemptions.

Some MEP's have branded the exemptions 'illegal' and legal action from the Parliament is possible.


Gordon Davy 
Baltimore, MD 
[log in to unmask]
410-993-7399 
 

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