Dear Lead-Free Group,

During some internal DoC discussions, Chris Sherwood of our Brussels
Mission had the following to say about review and revision of EU
RoHS.  I thought you would like to see his message because he has a
window on the processes in the Commission.  This is sent with his
permission.  I warned him it could result in lots of inquiries from you all.

2008 gives a good bit of time to plan an argument for a rollback of
the Pb ban and lay the ground work with lobbying.  However, it also
gives plenty of time for existing and newly developed Pb-free
processes to become economically entrenched.  Not to mention plenty
of time for ecological damage from silver mining, tin mining, energy
cost of recovery, etc.

John Sieber
DoC/TA/NIST



>From: [log in to unmask]
>Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 09:09:28 +0200
>
>RoHS will never be repealed. But it is just possible that the lead
>ban will be lifted, because the Commission has indicated to us that
>they will undertake an extended impact assessment on the policy
>proposals they come up with when they plan the revision. This is
>going to take a much more all-embracing approach to the
>environmental costs and benefits than the original RoHS Directive.
>The pro-lead solder lobby should get ready for the revision of the
>RoHS Directive, starting probably in 2008, and push for
>this if they believe the lead ban is environmentally harmful.
>
>Cost arguments are much much less likely to count for the EU, since
>cost was not permitted as one of the grounds for seeking an
>exemption under RoHS.
>
>Chris
>
>-------------------------
>
>Chris Sherwood
>Commercial Specialist
>Foreign Commercial Service
>US Mission to the EU
>1000 Brussels
>Belgium
>Tel: +32 2 508 2624
>Fax: +32 2 513 1228
>email: [log in to unmask]

John R. Sieber, PhD
Research Chemist

National Institute of Standards and Technology
Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory
Analytical Chemistry Division
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8391
Gaithersburg, MD  20899-8391 USA

[log in to unmask]
Tel:  1.301.975.3920
Fax:  1.301.869.0413
www.cstl.nist.gov/

Identification of commercial items in this document does
not imply endorsement by NIST or that items are

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