Today is the deadline for international chemical companies to comply with a sweeping new European law requiring proof that products they export are safe. On Marketplace, CIR’s Mark Schapiro talks about the law, which may force American companies to make safer chemicals. Under the new regulation, called REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals), the companies will have to pre-register their products—revealing detailed data about the chemical ingredients and their toxicity—before they are allowed to sell the products in Europe.
Will American chemical companies—who’ve resisted regulations at home that require giving up such information to consumers—clean up their act? Or will they simply stop selling certain products that don’t meet the EU standards in Europe?
On the program, Schapiro points out:
If the United States does not keep up with what the European Union is doing now, what’s going to happen is we are going to become the dumping ground for products that are banned in Europe.
>> Listen to the full report on Marketplace.
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