This column is not about critical cleaning. It’s about how your government works. It’s about what you have to know to manage chemicals, which most of us managing critical cleaning work have to do. It’s about the drivers for change in management of chemicals being regulatory — rather than financially — or performance-driven. In next month’s column, we’ll cover a specific example upon which you may wish to have influence.

YOUR GOVERNMENT
Do you know in advance on what all U.S. government agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), are going to focus during the forthcoming period of six months to two years? If you don’t, you’ll probably have to accept whatever outcome they produce without having your individual voice, the voice of your firm or its legal representative, and the voicesof your industry’s advocates heard.

There are at least two parts to governmental action: legislation and regulation. Only through our voting privilege can we influence the creation of legislation. Not to say Jack Abramoff hasn’t been effective or that our prisons don’t have room forhis unindicted competitors....

But you, your firm, and your industry can influence nearly all regulatory action required by legislation. To have such influence it’s necessary to know what is planned, when decisions will be made, the name of those agencies and individuals responsible for managing the regulation, what data is needed or can be of significance, the formal process for providing opinions or data,and who will be affected by the regulatory product.

REGULATORY AGENDA
President Clinton signed Executive Order 12866 (58 FR 51735) in 1993, requiring federal agencies to publish a Seminannual Regulatory Agenda. These documents describe the most important regulatory and deregulatory actions that can be reasonably expected to appear in proposed or final form during the upcomingfiscal year. There is no legal significance to omission of an item.

These agendas have traditionally been published in the Federal Register, making them available to all but less than useful to most. Effective December 10, 2007, for the first time, the bulk of EPA’s agenda became available on line, though paper copies are still available. The web address is http://www.epa.gov/lawsregs/search/regagenda.html, which also provides web addresses for accessing similar information for the entire Federal government.

AGENDA OF THE FALL
The Fall 2007 EPA Regulatory Plan and Semiannual Regulatory Agenda can be sorted by stage of regulatory development. Of significance to firms engaged in operations covered by this magazine are the following regulations:

• Nanoscale Materials Under TSCA (previously covered in this column in May, 2007, now in the Pre-rule Stage)
• Nonylphenol (NP) and its Ethoxylates (NPE), which are the most commonly used surfactants in cleaning products (now in the Test Rule stage)
• Amendment to the Universal Waste Rule: Addition of Pharmaceuticals, now in the Pre-rule Stage

MR. SMITH
You can’t follow Mr. Smith (Jimmy Stewart in Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”). You have to follow expected procedures, including those for written input:

• For regulatory situations not yet codified into a rule draft, identify the Agency Contact
  (from www.reginfo.gov) and his or her contact information.
• Establish the status of the regulation, and what the data or opinion needs are of the Agency Contact.
• For nearly every proposed rule there will be at least one opportunity for a citizen to request a public meeting to vet the rule. The opportunity will be short-lived after publication of a notice in the Federal Register.
• For nearly every proposed rule there will be a similar formal opportunity to provide data pertaining to the rule, and another opportunity to provide an opinion about it. These opinions will be considered and reviewed when the final rule is published.

In next month's column, I will review the recent changes in EPA’s VOC management program and suggest that you personally adopt the role of Mr.Smith on this topic.

John Durkee is the author of the book Management of Industrial Cleaning Technology and Processes, published by Elsevier (ISBN 0-0804-48887). He is the author of the forthcoming book Solvent Cleaning for the 21st Century, also to be published by Elsevier, and is an independent consultant specializing in critical cleaning. You can contact him at PO Box 847, Hunt, TX 78024 or 122 Ridge Road West, Hunt, TX 78024; 830-238-7610; Fax 612-677-3170; or jdurkee@precisioncleaning.com.