Overview
HCPA member companies share a common goal with state and federal environmental agencies: improving air quality for all Americans. During the past 30 years, HCPA member companies spent hundreds of millions of dollars to develop new or reformulated products that are more effective and environmentally sustainable. HCPA member companies’ actions have helped to improve air quality while maintaining our industry’s ability to supply affordable products that consumers can rely on to benefit their health, safety and quality of life each and every day.
California Air Resources Board (CARB)
HCPA and our member companies continue to work cooperatively with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and environmental groups to lower the amount of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) used to formulate consumer products. Since 1989, HCPA has been actively engaged in negotiating the provisions of every one of the numerous rulemaking procedures CARB has conducted to continually revise California’s comprehensive and stringent consumer products regulation. Actions by CARB and HCPA member companies have helped to significantly improve air quality in California.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
HCPA member companies worked cooperatively with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop the current national VOC regulation for consumer products to comply with Section 183(e) of the Clean Air Act. See 40 C.F.R. 59 Subpart C . Since many consumer products are manufactured for a nationwide market, HCPA supports uniform regulations that improve air quality without imposing impediments to interstate commerce.
Ozone Transportation Commission (OTC)
HCPA members continue to support state actions to adopt regionally consistent regulations based on the Ozone Transport Commission (OTC) Consumer Products Model Rule. Currently, 16 states and the District of Columbia have adopted final regulations based on the OTC Model Rule. These regulations cover more categories of consumer products and generally impose more stringent VOC limits than the current EPA national regulation and are an integral part of the comprehensive regional strategy to reduce ground-level ozone to comply with the federal ozone standard. HCPA supports consistent regional regulations because even slight differences between state regulations can make it very difficult for regional and small companies to comply with these stringent VOC limits.
Compliance Assistance
HCPA helps our member companies comply with complex state and federal air quality regulatory requirements by producing a variety of compliance-assistance documents and conducting seminars and webinars.
