Gordon:

I appreciate your arguments and find them logically sound.  Holding back 
contempt is not easy in this case.

First, I should tell you that when I wrote about the EU and its advisors not 
being equipped to properly make the decisions they have been making, I was 
referring to their so-called "experts" and technical advisors as well as the 
drafters of the legislation.  I read the initial report done by ERA 
Technology on existing standards and their applicability to RoHS 
enforcement, and even though I like Dr. Paul Goodman and think he's a fairly 
reasonably person, he casually (and wrongly) dismissed ISO 3613 as a 
potential measurement technique for hexavalent chromium in chromate 
conversion coatings simply because he didn't think it was relevant - he did 
not have enough experience with industry and its practices to ignore that 
standard.  Furthemore, when Sophia Lau of IBM and I made our case at NIST in 
October 2005 concerning hexavalent chromium measurement techniques and the 
improper use of units of weight percent, the EU IRMM representative replied 
"We didn't know".  I tried educating EU officials and advisors about the 
units and measurement problem from approximately July 2003 through the 
present; some of the officials et. al. I contacted were Dr. Paul Goodman, 
Steve Andrews of DTI and the EU TAC, Denis Pohl (Belgium) of the EU TAC, and 
Anna Passera, Marianne Klingbeil, Stavros Dimas and Margot Wallstrom (now 
Vice President of the EU Commission, but formerly EU Commissioner for 
Environment). I brought the issue to the attention of numerous US government 
officials and employees and of those, only the NIST personnel really 
understood the problem.  The point is that the EU is legislating global 
change in materials use affecting most supply chains, and THEY KNOW THEY ARE 
HAVING A GLOBAL IMPACT.  The fact that they did not understand the technical 
issues surrounding hexavalent chromium measurement in chromate conversion 
coatings means that they are not properly equipped to be making these types 
of decisions, particularly when those decisions impact manufacturing 
EVERYWHERE.  I have suggested that the EU is leveraging access to their 
market in order to foist their environmental agenda on the entire globe.  I 
do not think it is appropriate to allow them to continue in this manner - if 
we are all impacted, we must all have a say.

Nancy Nord, now Chairman of the Consumer Products Safety Commission, 
explained the difference between the US and EU philosophies on hazardous 
substances at a conference I attended in NYC.  She said that while the US 
uses a "risk-based" approach to manage hazardous substances, the EU uses a 
"hazard-based" approach.  Simply put, the US seeks to mitigate hazards 
through setting threshold exposure limits and use of personal protective 
equipment, the EU philospohy is to remove potential hazards such that no 
exposure may occur.  This fits nicely into what you said about the 
environmental activist wanting to rid the biosphere of toxic substances.  At 
another technical conference (an ASM conference I believe) I was a speaker 
on RoHS issues, but I was put into a room full of California environment 
"gurus" from the EU and U Cal Davis and U Cal Berkeley.  I call California 
"Europe, USA" because of its propensity to adopt EU environmental 
principles.  This group was quite pro-EU RoHS and ELV and Packaging and etc 
(I am pro-environment and pro-human health, but what good ideas the EU has 
had have been in my opinion poorly implemented and poorly considered).  One 
gentleman - I believe he was a UC Davis student, probably working on his 
Master's or PhD - actually stated that they should consider a ban on copper! 
I couldn't contain myself, so I asked what gave him that idea - did he read 
an MSDS on copper?  He said that why yes, he had, and it is a very toxic 
substance and it should not be allowed in landfills.  I said that the 
hazards with regard to copper, as with every substance, are circumstantial - 
hazards must be considered in context with potential for exposure or harm, 
not in a vacuum based solely on the relative toxicity.  In fact, I stated, 
EVERYTHING is hazardous given a certain concentration or mode of exposure. 
(Go ahead, name anything you want, and I can come up with a way it can kill 
a person).  They ended the session on that note.  Again, this is consistent 
with what you said in your message - I'm just elaborating here for those who 
care.

At any rate - good job John and Gordon.  I will send in my letter of support 
soon.

My Best,

Tim McGrady



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Davy, Gordon" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, December 15, 2006 7:20 PM
Subject: Re: [LF] Official EU exemption request support for lead in 
solders - your input is needed - really important please read


This is one of my longer postings. For those who don't care to read the 
whole thing, the short version is this: Be noble and submit to the EU 
authorities your letter of support for the RoHSUSA exemption request 
(covering all electronics assemblies using lead in solder). There are risks 
in claiming that lead-free solder harms the environment and health more than 
tin-lead solder. Instead, point out the inherent inconsistency between the 
RoHS directive and the Precautionary Principle that it invokes.



Tim McGrady said recently that the EU and its advisors are not equipped to 
make the decisions they are making. I believe that this assertion applies 
more to the EU officials than to their technical advisors, who no matter how 
well equipped, are in the awkward position of having to recognize the 
political limits to what they can advise. At the risk of sounding harsh, 
here is a theory of why the officials are unequipped: they embrace their 
beliefs with such unquestioning tenacity (read dogmatism) that it overwhelms 
whatever technical competence and sound advice they might otherwise be able 
to command. It is a universal principle that suppressing any truth confuses 
one's thinking in that area. It's the officials' dogmatism and confused 
thinking that makes so many of us pessimistic that appeals that present a 
substantive challenge to the RoHS directive, no matter how cogent, will 
result in the EU's reversing course.

Show your support.

But no one knows the future. While I still doubt that John Burke's request 
for exempting all electronics assemblies using lead in solder will prevail, 
the fact that it has been given official status is significant. The present 
level of openness of EU officials to input from ordinary people is an 
improvement over their inaccessibility during development of the RoHS 
directive. Thanks, John, for persevering to get this far in what I didn't 
think could happen. By the way, does tin-lead plating as a termination 
finish count as solder?

We should all submit letters of support. Doing so won't improve the 
performance rating your boss gives you, but do it out of altruism - concern 
for the greater good. Challenge error with truth. Light a candle instead of 
cursing the darkness. Respond to the call of duty (a word and concept 
vanishing in our increasingly relativistic and individualistic age).

I would suggest to any subscriber who has not yet submitted a letter of 
support, identify the company that you work for. For your peace of mind you 
can add a disclaimer about your comments being your own opinion. Be diligent 
in what you write and how you write it. Any submission by an industry 
representative could be regarded as self-serving, so you want to present 
yourself as impartial to increase the chance that yours will receive an 
impartial evaluation. Establish your objectivity and lack of bias in the 
matter. The person evaluating it may not be dogmatic. Point out that even 
though you work for a manufacturer of electronic equipment, your company is 
already RoHS-compliant (or, as in my case, builds electronic equipment that 
the directive doesn't cover) and you as a technical person in that company 
anticipate no benefit should the exemption be granted. This is particularly 
important for such a sweeping, high-visibility, and politically sensitive 
exemption request as John's is.

It is important, of course, that you not only express support for the 
exemption, but can document your claims. Demonstrate rigorous thinking. You 
don't want the reviewer to conclude that you are just repeating hearsay, are 
making unsupported claims, or present factual errors in your appeal. To 
demonstrate your competence you also want to express yourself clearly. (To 
help ensure the adequacy of what you say, imagine getting a telephone call 
from the reviewer asking you to explain what you have written.) Proofread 
carefully.

I've long tried to work toward these goals in my writing. My latest writing 
improvement goal is to write more politely - or at least less abrasively. 
Maybe that will increase my persuasiveness. But it's hard because I have my 
own strong beliefs (see abrasive aside below).

What the creators of RoHS believe.

As you consider what you want to say, it helps to understand the beliefs and 
intents of the people who drafted and enacted the RoHS directive, even 
though you disagree with them. Their beliefs can be discerned from the 
preamble (the part of the directive that starts "Whereas"). Either because 
of the wording or because of the strength of my resentment, I've had to read 
the preamble (and the rest of RoHS) many times to make sure that I really 
understand what it says. Confused thinking leads to confusing writing. Also, 
legislators sometimes employ "studied ambiguity" to mask awkward 
differences.

Article 5 says that legislation on recycling and disposal of waste 
electronic equipment (i.e., the WEEE directive) is "necessary to reduce the 
waste management problems linked to the heavy metals concerned and the flame 
retardants concerned." (Since the writers are not chemists, we can forgive 
them for not knowing that neither chromium nor cadmium is a heavy metal.)

It says further that even with recycling, a significant amount of waste 
electronic equipment "will continue to be found in the current disposal 
routes" (i.e., incineration and landfilling). It says that the presence in 
electronic equipment of the prohibited materials "would be likely to pose 
risks to health or the environment." (Not that it does pose a risk, but only 
that it probably does.) It isn't clear, but presumably that risk assertion 
is intended to apply to all discarded electronic equipment - whether it goes 
to a recycler or is disposed of conventionally.

As an added benefit of prohibiting the materials, Article 6 says that it "is 
likely to enhance the possibilities and economic profitability of recycling 
of WEEE and decrease the negative health impact on workers in recycling 
plants." (Saying "likely" regarding these claims gives the impression that 
the legislators are just guessing. These are matters that had they wanted to 
would have been easy for them to verify before they enacted the directive.)

Read the preamble for yourself and see what you think of my summary of what 
it says about why it is necessary to prohibit the use in electronic 
equipment of the identified materials.

*    Their presence might harm health and the environment.

*    Recycling is needed to reduce that (possible) harm.

*    Recycling is more likely to be profitable and less likely to harm 
recycling workers if the waste electronic equipment they receive doesn't 
contain them.

*    Not all electronic equipment will get recycled - some of it will remain 
in the waste stream (with the implication that it will therefore go into 
incinerators and landfills).

The entire directive is founded on the belief that even with implementation 
of the WEEE directive, "to achieve the chosen level of protection" the 
continued use of the prohibited materials in electronic equipment poses too 
big a risk to health and the environment. Quite significantly, given the 
centrality of that belief, the nature of the risk is not actually stated nor 
is it supported with any evidence. The reference to risks and probabilities 
instead of actualities puts the prohibition of lead in electronic equipment 
on a speculative foundation - a weakness that should be brought to the 
attention of anyone who will listen.

Abrasive aside.

Since I've tried so hard to be polite in my letter of support (see below), I 
can't resist saying a few things here that would be most inappropriate 
there.  As I've studied the RoHS directive I have wondered how it came to 
be. As implied above, I have concluded that the officials responsible for it 
share a core belief - a dogma. While rarely stated or challenged publicly, 
that dogma is that, regarding health and the environment alone, it is 
desirable to eliminate from all industrial products all uses of any 
substance identified as toxic.

Parenthetically, one environmental activist goes so far as to say - 
seriously! - that his goal is to "rid the biosphere of all toxic 
substances." He didn't mention what concentrations he would tolerate or 
whether that includes disease germs. Or the lead from burning gasoline that 
is distributed all over the world. Or whether he would allow arsenic, an 
enabling ingredient of cell phones. I hope he doesn't manage to get many 
people to join in his crusade. But his willingness to even put something as 
silly as this on his web site indicates how far people can get carried away 
with a notion. Remember the guy who put spikes in trees he didn't own to 
hurt anyone who tried to cut them down?

If I'm right that this dogma exists and is as I have characterized it, it is 
amazingly naïve. Another abrasive but appropriate word is hubris - a result 
of the EU officials' lack of accountability to the ordinary citizens who pay 
their salaries and in whose interest they profess to be governing.

Bluntly, the RoHS directive is superstition and demagoguery enacted into 
law. The usual reasoning accompanying superstitious behavior is "it can't 
hurt and it might help." The demagogue says "We are in a crisis - we can't 
afford the time that it would take to allow the normal processes of 
deliberation to occur. We must act now." In times past thinking like this 
led people to sacrifice their firstborn son to an idol and throw virgins 
into volcanoes. My, how we've progressed!

Here's my paraphrase. "The risk of harming health and the environment is so 
serious we can't allow you to continue with business as usual. Even though 
we can't prove that harm is occurring or that our rules will help, it is 
enough to know that it might be occurring or start occurring, and that the 
rules might help. You have to find some other way to build electronic 
equipment. We aren't interested in hearing how much more it costs you to 
comply with the rules, so don't even mention it. As a concession and to show 
how reasonable we are, if you tell us about specific situations where 
implementing these requirements would prevent you from putting that 
equipment on the market, we will consider requests for exemptions. But any 
relief we grant is for those situations only and we may decide later to 
remove it." Harsh as this sounds, who will call it an exaggeration?

Irresponsible environmental activists, at least the leaders, should know 
that the dogma is false but don't care. They are the originators. They 
employ bogeyman warnings to encourage this kind of confused thinking. It 
frightens their donors and demonstrates to them the activists' ability to 
influence legislation. That's important for maintaining their cash flow. I 
call it evil.

There, that was cathartic. I feel better from getting it out.

What to say.

As you decide what you want your letter of appeal to say, consider this. To 
make the appeal by claiming that more harm is done to health and the 
environment by lead-free than by tin-lead solder in electronic products is 
to imply that you accept the environmentalists' claim that tin-lead solder 
damages health and the environment. It also implies that you believe 
replacing it with lead-free solder will cause more damage. Do you really 
want to do that? Imagine getting a phone call asking you if the data you 
have submitted are irrefutable and relevant. Asking how rigorous your 
thinking is. Asking what makes you think that use of lead-free solder in 
electronic products will result in harm.

Have you considered the risk that someone will exploit what you say, 
especially if many others say it too? Now that RoHS is law, they need to 
find a new cause. Remember that the RoHS directive identifies no lead-free 
solder as an "environmentally friendly alternative." It would be a stretch 
for copper, but silver is right next to cadmium in the periodic table. 
Someone could start an effort to add silver to the list of prohibited RoHS 
substances. Given the opportunism of irresponsible environmental activists 
and the dogmatism of the EU officials, who can say that this couldn't 
happen?

Instead of comparing environmental and health consequences of changing the 
composition of solder, my supporting argument for John's exemption request 
focuses on lack of evidence and rigor in the RoHS directive. It asserts a 
fundamental and irreconcilable internal inconsistency in the RoHS directive 
(an assertion that I think offers less room for differences of opinion). My 
argument identifies the inconsistency between that the substance of the RoHS 
directive and the Precautionary Principle that it invokes. It asserts that 
the suitability for use of, and the environmental consequences of using, 
lead-free solder in electronic products have not been established. That is 
all that is necessary to say.

Also, the internal inconsistency argument (with the footnote) applies with 
equal force to the entire directive, not just lead in solder. If someone 
were to prepare and submit an exemption request to reverse the whole 
directive, I think my argument applies and is valid.

Before I submit my letter of support, in spite of its length I'd like to ask 
forum participants to read it and offer a response. I'd prefer for them to 
find the deficiencies, including gratuitous abrasiveness, in it. If it 
receives favor, perhaps others might want to use some of these arguments.

Gordon Davy

In support of Exemption # 15

I am an engineer in a company that builds electronic equipment not covered 
by the RoHS directive. Hence, should this exemption request be granted I 
would receive no personal benefit. My company  (and its customers) would 
receive at most a secondary benefit. In other words, my support for this 
exemption is based solely on its merits and not on any anticipated gain. The 
grounds of my appeal are unrelated to the costs of implementing and 
complying with the RoHS directive, which I recognize by EU policy are 
irrelevant considerations for matters of health and the environment.

I would have welcomed a meaningful opportunity to submit this appeal years 
ago while the directive was being developed and considered, but the 
legislative process did not provide it. I was told for years before its 
enactment that the directive was "a done deal" and that the legislators were 
not interested in receiving such comments from outside sources. So I am 
quite glad to get this opportunity. I have prepared and now submit my 
support for Exemption #15 with the hope that it will receive serious 
consideration.

I respectfully oppose the RoHS directive's prohibition of lead in electronic 
equipment (including solder) because for the reasons shown below it is 
fundamentally contrary to the Precautionary Principle. This is a serious 
matter because adherence to the Precautionary Principle is EU policy (as 
indicated in articles 2 and 10 of the RoHS preamble).

1. The Precautionary Principle says that those who favor a change have the 
burden of proof. They must show, publicly and cogently enough to convince 
opponents, that it will not make things worse. As a matter of simple 
prudence the Precautionary Principle must apply regardless of who favors the 
change. That is, if the Precautionary Principle is not just a convenient 
tool to promote an agenda but a valid principle for protecting health and 
the environment, it must be complied with equally by those who propose a new 
practice and those who oppose a prevailing one. The opponents of the 
prevailing practice of using lead in electronic equipment have scarcely 
begun to meet that requirement.

2. The Precautionary Principle applies to proposed changes. For any 
prevailing practice it is a misapplication to allude, as do Articles 5 and 8 
of the preamble, to "risks." Opponents of a prevailing practice need to 
document the harm that is happening instead of speculating about harm that 
might happen. For them to resort to risk language (in essence expressing 
fear) suggests that they have nothing more substantive to offer. It weakens 
their position.

3. The Precautionary Principle requires substantiation. Article 5 of the 
preamble only alludes to "available evidence" documenting waste management 
problems. No such "available" evidence has been made public. Without public 
scrutiny of purported evidence there is no impartial review of its validity 
and applicability.  In fact, despite ample opportunity no claim of harm (or 
even risk) to the environment or health due to lead in electronic 
equipment - from manufacturing, use, recycling, or conventional disposal - 
has been supported by public evidence*.

I have been following the development of the RoHS directive for many years. 
The only relevant evidence I have seen that might be taken to support it - 
and this has long been established - is that a level of lead in a person's 
body above some threshold harms his health. However, that fact alone is 
quite insufficient to warrant prohibiting use of lead in electronic 
equipment. To have merit such a prohibition would need support by a finding 
that establishes that the presence of lead in electronic equipment increases 
the level of lead in people. It should also propose a plausible mechanism 
for how it causes that increase.

For example, depending on how determined one is to make the case, one might 
try to show that it is common for people surreptitiously to grind up 
end-of-life electronic equipment and use it in significant quantities as a 
snack or as an additive to their food or drinks or cigarettes, or to use it 
as snuff. One would then show that these people have a significantly higher 
blood lead level than people who don't engage in such practices, and further 
that their behavior is addictive and hence unlikely to change by simply 
publicizing its disadvantages. So far no one has been that determined.

The need for finding a connection between presence in product and presence 
in people is well known by epidemiologists It would be appropriate for the 
preamble to refer to such a finding - if it existed - as the grounds for the 
prohibition.

The root flaw in the RoHS directive is that it tacitly assumes a causal 
connection between lead in electronic equipment and lead in people. It does 
not so state, nor does it offer so much as a speculative connection. It also 
ignores the fact that rather than increasing, human blood lead levels have 
been decreasing, for decades, since the elimination of lead in gasoline 
(petrol) and paint. This too is well known by epidemiologists.

As for environmental effects, the directive ignores the fact that a great 
deal of lead is present everywhere as a result of decades of burning leaded 
gasoline. To be significant, a claim that disposal of electronic products 
increases lead in the environment would need to show that the purported 
increase was significant compared to the amount already present.

4. The Precautionary Principle requires identifying a proposed change and 
documenting its lack of harm. As is acknowledged in Article 10 of the 
preamble by the phrase "more environmentally friendly alternatives,"  if 
electrical and electronic equipment are to continue to be put on the market 
in Europe, abandoning the use of lead in effect mandates using something 
else. Where lead is used, it is not used capriciously but because its unique 
properties add value to the product's performance. Yet no evidence has been 
made public (or even claimed) showing favorable environmental or health 
effects of using purported substitutes for lead. What opponent of a new 
industrial practice would accept the use by its proponents of the vague term 
"more environmentally friendly alternatives"? Yet that is exactly the effect 
of the RoHS directive.

To convince opponents that a proposed new practice is effective and safer 
than current practice, the Precautionary Principle demands that the proposed 
practice must be clearly stated, and environmental impact and risk analyses 
must be prepared. The RoHS preamble simply assumes that suitable and 
environmentally friendly substitutes for lead in electronic products exist 
(or can be found), and offers not even so much as speculation on what they 
are or how their friendliness has been (or is to be) determined. As 
environmental activists have been pointing out for a long time, the mere 
existence of a substitute believed to be effective is insufficient. Its 
environmental and health safety must have been established.

Given the lack of public evidence of any health or environmental problem 
attributable to use of lead in electronic equipment, and without well 
established evidence that a more environmentally friendly alternative is 
even known, it should be quite clear that to demand switching to an 
unspecified alternative of undetermined environmental friendliness is 
contrary to the Precautionary Principle.

In addition to the above arguments showing why the RoHS directive is 
inconsistent with the Precautionary Principle, it must be recognized that 
the RoHS prohibition of lead in electronic equipment jeopardizes 
manufacturers who have adopted the lead-free solders now in use. Those 
solders have not received anywhere near the scrutiny or industrial 
experience that tin-lead solder has. Should significant health or 
environmental problems with them be found, consistent application of the 
Precautionary Principle would presumably require users to look once again 
for a substitute - of even less well established environmental friendliness, 
to say nothing of reduced suitability.

Manufacturers of electronic equipment are also at risk because given 
prevailing legislative practice further unsubstantiated prohibitions could 
be proposed at any time, most likely with limited opportunity offered to 
challenge them before they are enacted.

In summary, I believe that because of lack of any publicly available 
supporting evidence, the RoHS directive, even though it acknowledges the 
Precautionary Principle, irreparably violates it. The flaws are so basic and 
so systemic that no amount of tinkering with the wording would provide a 
remedy. More particularly, I believe that because of lack of any publicly 
available supporting evidence, any prohibition of lead in electronic 
equipment is not good public policy.

Regrettably, it appears that those who drafted and enacted the RoHS 
directive failed to recognize its internal inconsistencies. The effect of 
the prohibition is to require using substitutes whose suitability and 
greater environmental friendliness have yet to be adequately established. 
Hence to act consistently with the Precautionary Principle, that prohibition 
should be vacated until those who oppose use of lead in electronic equipment 
can state clearly, and produce and defend convincing evidence, the change 
they favor.

Simply pointing out that lead is toxic falls far short of that standard.



*Although this discussion is limited to the RoHS directive's prohibition of 
lead, similar arguments apply to the prohibition of all of the other 
prohibited substances. The now well known difficulties in measuring the 
concentrations of hexavalent chromium and the prohibited brominated flame 
retardants indicate that the maximum concentration levels were specified 
without scientific evidence. The primary sources of cadmium in people are 
food and cigarettes. The primary source of mercury is coal. The adverse 
health effects of hexavalent chromium have been found where significant 
quantities of that substance are airborne.

No evidence has been made public to show specifically, as is necessary, that 
not only are the prohibited substances toxic, but that use of any of them in 
electronic products has caused measurable harm to the environment or health. 
In fact, for each there are good reasons from basic laws of chemistry why 
such use should have no effect - whether the equipment is disposed of in any 
municipal incinerator or landfill or responsibly recycled. For the case of 
the prohibited flame retardants, when their dangers became known, adequate 
substitutes known to be safe were available. All the prohibited BFRs have 
now been removed from the market. Hence that issue has become moot.

Please note that these allegations, while true, are not necessary to 
establish the validity of my appeal. It is the proponents of the RoHS 
directive who have been seeking a change. The Precautionary Principle puts 
on them the burden of proof. They need to respond to the issues I raise. 
They have produced no argument to support even the perception of risk, let 
alone document any harm. Hence one must conclude that the entire directive 
is based on unsubstantiated beliefs.




-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Leadfee 
Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d
To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in
the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Leadfree
To temporarily stop/(start) delivery of Leadree for vacation breaks send: 
SET Leadfree NOMAIL/(MAIL)
Search previous postings at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives
Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 
for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 
847-615-7100 ext.2815
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Leadfee Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d
To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in
the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Leadfree
To temporarily stop/(start) delivery of Leadree for vacation breaks send: SET Leadfree NOMAIL/(MAIL)
Search previous postings at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives
Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------