Impact of Rising Regulations on Chemical Manufacturing/American Priorities: American Chemistry Council Report

The American Chemistry Council (“ACC”) announced the release of a report titled:

Impact of Rising Regulations on Chemical Manufacturing & American Priorities (“Report”)

The Report describes its purpose as providing insight into:

. . . the impact of the tremendous rise in chemical regulations and how they adversely impact national priorities and American manufacturing.

ACC states that the findings were generated by a survey of its member companies doing business in the United States.

ACC describes itself as representing more than 190 companies engaged in the business of chemistry. It describes its mission as advocating for the:

. . . people, policy, and products of chemistry that make the United States the global leader in innovation and manufacturing.

The Report addresses:

• Chemistry’s Contribution to Supporting National Priorities
  • Referencing clean energy
  • Referencing infrastructure
  • Health Care
  • Semiconductors
  • Biotechnology/Biomanufacturing products

Each of these categories addresses the percentage of chemical manufacturers reporting that they produce a chemical input used in these activities:

• Regulatory Burden – referencing the percentage of members that report the level of regulatory burden has increased on the federal, state, and local level

The Report also addresses ACC members’ views on future regulatory burdens at the local, state, and federal level.

The Report also provides ACC members’ views on the impact of regulations on:

• National Priorities, listing:
  • Clean energy
  • Semiconductors
  • Biotechnology/biomanufacturing products
  • Health Care
  • Infrastructure
• Impact of Regulations on Manufacturing, listing:
  • Hiring
  • Investment in R&D, new technologies, and new products
  • Divert resources from capital replacement

Finally, the Report provides ACC members’ views on the most challenging aspects of regulations, listing:

• Agencies writing a final rule absent an adequate understanding of the business/compliance challenges
• Using legal discretion to set a standard that is more stringent than it should be
• Inconsistency between regulations issued by different levels of government
• Enforcing ambiguous requirements inconsistently or inappropriately

A copy of the Report can be downloaded here.