IPC Discusses Regulations With Federal Committees

By Connector Supplier | July 01, 2012

At the invitation of U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), IPC President Dr. John W. Mitchell outlined existing and proposed regulations that negatively impact the electronics manufacturing industry. In a letter to Issa, IPC identified four issues that the company said burden the industry, further contributing to the continued decline of U.S. employment in the electronics manufacturing sector.

IPC wrote that proposed regulations on conflict minerals being developed by the Security and Exchange Commission under Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act could impose burdensome reporting requirements on manufacturers that use tin, gold, tantalum and tungsten in their products. While IPC supports the underlying goal of Section 1502, addressing the grave human rights situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), it is concerned that the SEC’s draft regulations place a burden on the private sector with little regard for the impact they will have on small businesses and the relief they will offer the people of the DRC.

IPC also decried the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Chemical Data Reporting rule, which replaced the Toxic Substances Control Act Inventory Update Reporting rule. He said it penalizes manufacturers for doing what the EPA and other environmentally conscious non-governmental organizations would normally consider laudable — recycling.

By requiring all manufacturers that recycle byproducts to report those byproducts as “new chemicals,” the EPA creates regulatory requirements that discourage recycling. In addition, IPC said, the rule results double and sometimes triple annual reporting of many of these byproducts, which are already reported under the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory program and under Resource Conservation and Recovery Act biennial reporting.

IPC also cited its members’ increasing concerns that OSHA is stretching the boundaries of their authority to support expansive interpretation and enforcement of OSHA regulations.

Visit IPC online.

Connector Supplier
Get the Latest News
On TTI’s podcast the Distribution Download, our interconnect expert Bob Hult discusses the fiber optics.
eBook 2023 The Age of Connected Technology
x