Experience
Alston & Bird helps clients take a proactive—rather than reactive—approach to these developments, offering product sustainability legal services that help companies maximize the opportunities presented by these changes, while also ensuring the best management of the health and environmental impacts across the life cycles of their products. Drawing on its expertise in the “traditional” environmental, health and safety-related regulatory services, as well as its deep bench of talent in products liability, class action and toxic tort litigation, Alston & Bird provides sophisticated advice and representation on domestic and international environmental issues affecting the design, marketing, use and disposition of our clients’ products.
Maureen Gorsen, former director of the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), leads the firm’s Green Chemistry & Chemicals Management Group, with a practice focused on U.S. state law, agencies and regulation. Through her work at DTSC, Ms. Gorsen has been credited for overseeing California’s Green Chemistry Initiative, which is heralded as one of the single-most important environmental programs to be implemented in the decade to come.
What Is Green Chemistry?
California’s green chemistry program has implications for all companies that produce consumer products sold in California, regardless of where a company is located. “Green chemistry” is California’s innovative approach to exporting its environmental standards to the worldwide manufacturing industry. By focusing on consumer products sold into California, and regulating the design of those products and the processes by which they are manufactured, California aims to reduce overall use of what the state perceives as potentially hazardous and toxic substances.
The legislation that governs California’s green chemistry movement is comprised of California’s Assembly Bill 1879 (AB 1879) and Senate Bill 509 (SB 509).
AB 1879 directs that California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) create a systematic, science-based process to evaluate chemicals of concern in products and stimulate innovation in California’s product development sector. SB 509 requires the state to develop an online toxics data clearinghouse and regulations to establish the requirements for data and test methods.
How Will This Affect Your Business?
The green chemistry statutes require DTSC to establish implementing regulations covering the following issues:
- identify and create a list of chemicals that are toxic and can harm people or the environment;
- prioritize products containing those chemicals, based upon such factors as the volume in commerce, the extent of public exposure and how the product is eventually disposed;
- require manufacturers of those products to perform a detailed “alternatives assessment” to determine if a viable, safer alternative to the chemical exists; and
- establish various regulatory response actions to address any remaining concerns raised by the alternatives selected by manufacturers for implementation and move manufacturers toward designing safer products. Potential actions include requiring labeling, requiring end-of-life management and restricting usage.
These regulations are still in the drafting stage, and are expected to be in place no earlier than late 2011.
The DTSC views that any producer, private label manufacturer and importer of a consumer product into California has a duty to comply with the requirements of California’s green chemistry program, regardless of where that company does business.
Chemical and product manufacturers wanting to determine whether ingredients in their products might receive regulatory review can view the initial set of chemicals contained in the draft regulation by clicking here.
Accolades
We are leaders in our field. Chambers USA describes us as “a phenomenal group at the top of the industry,” in addition to selecting eight attorneys as leaders in the field of environmental law. One of our partners’ national preeminence was confirmed by his selection in 2007-2008 as the chair of the American Bar Association’s Section on Energy, Environment and Resources (SEER). Another partner just completed a two-year term serving as chair of SEER’s Environmental Enforcement and Crimes Committee. Our team also includes the former general counsel of the California Environmental Protection Agency and the former director of the Department of Toxic Substances Control, as well as former senior enforcement officials from the Environmental Enforcement Section and Environmental Crimes Section of the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. EPA.