CARB Issues New Draft VOC Limits for Consumer Products
CARB Issues New Draft VOC Limits for Consumer Products
On November 7, 2019, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) held a second public workshop to review its draft proposed amendments (Draft Proposal) to its Consumer Products regulations. Since its first public workshop in April, where it identified 49 priority categories, CARB has convened two public work groups related to these regulatory amendments: a Regulatory Strategies Work Group, which has met 14 times and has eliminated 32 categories from further evaluation, and a Regulatory Definitions Work Group that has met twice to update existing regulatory definitions and improve program implementation.
Draft Proposal Summary.
The chart below sets forth the categories in the Draft Proposal, their existing volatile organic compound (VOC) standards, and the draft proposed VOC standards and VOC reductions, along with their corresponding effective dates of January 1, 2023, and January 1, 2027.
Category | Existing VOC Standard | Effective Date: | Effective Date: | ||
Draft | VOC | Draft | VOC | ||
Manual Aerosol | 20% or 30% | 10% | 1.0 | 5% | 1.8 |
Hair Finishing Spray | 55% | 50% | 1.1 | 45% | 2.7 |
No Rinse Shampoo | NA | 50% | 0.7 | 45% | 0.9 |
Personal Fragrance Products (< 20% Fragrance) | 75% | 65% | 1.7 | 50% | 5.8 |
Crawling Bug Insecticide | 15% | 10% | 0.4 | 6% | 0.9 |
Charcoal Lighter Material | 0.020 lbs./start | 0.014 lbs/start1 | -- | 0.014 lbs./start | 0.4 |
Sunset 2% Fragrance Exemption | 2% of product mass exempted | -- | -- | 0% exempted | 0.3 |
|
| 5.0 |
| 12.8 |
According to CARB staff, the categories chosen included products most easily reformulated. CARB excluded categories due to possible challenges, such as reformulation issues, FDA issues, time constraints in completing review, or other issues.
Other Categories.
During the upcoming months of rulemaking, if any of the currently proposed categories become an issue, CARB has identified the following candidates available for consideration:
Other Ongoing Work.
CARB is also reviewing the following:
Toxic Compounds
Greenhouse Gases
Potential Reactivity-Based Approaches
Other Potential Regulatory Updates
Next steps.
CARB’s next steps include:
Late 2019 | Publish updated final survey data summaries, update consumer product emission inventory |
Early 2020 | Additional work group meetings:
|
Spring 2020 | Third public workshop: Refine draft regulatory proposal, draft regulatory language. Additional workshop if needed |
Ongoing | Meet individually with interested stakeholders |
Late 2020 | Board consideration of proposed regulatory amendments |
CARB is seeking comments and feedback on its Draft Proposal by Wednesday, November 27, 2019. Send comments and feedback to csmrprod@arb.ca.gov.
A copy of the Draft Proposal can be obtained here: The Public Workshop for Proposed Amendments to the Consumer Products Regulations.
Lois Miyashiro, an environmental analyst in the firm’s San Francisco office, assisted in the preparation of this client alert.