In a move which will affect international on-line retailers of various types of personal pest control products such as common insect repellants, Health Canada formally given notice of its intention to prohibit the importation of even limited quantity pest control products through regulatory changes to Canada’s Pest Control Products Act (PCPA). Unregulated Small Quantity Imports Targeted Currently, consumers in Canada may import limited quantities of pest control products for personal use without their registration under…
Environment Canada’s Chemical Management Plan (CMP) continues its assessment of current substances in Canada with a substantial new mandatory reporting obligation for importers and users of approximately 1500 chemicals. The reporting obligations are retrospective, applicable to calendar years 2014 and 2015 with a reporting deadline of July 17th, 2017. Substances in All Forms Caught By Survey Consistent with its previous mandated surveys, the reporting obligation applies in respect of: substances alone; mixtures; products; or specified…
Alberta’s Climate Leadership Act will become effective on January 1st, 2017, unleashing varying carbon levies on no fewer than 25 different fuels consumed by industry and consumers inside Alberta. That’s the Grinch. The Act does, however, offer users of fuels in Alberta a myriad of exemptions under which relief from the carbon levies may be available, in part or in whole. That’s Santa. Available Exemptions No fewer than 12 exemptions are available including: Already…
On November 29, 2016, EPA identified the first ten chemicals that it will send through the risk review process under the amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). EPA was obligated to publish this list by December 19, 2016. Publication of the list in the Federal Register in the next several days will trigger the three-year statutory deadline for EPA to determine whether the chemicals present an unreasonable risk to humans and the environment. If EPA…
Environment Canada has published a Notice of Intent to further amend the Domestic Substances List to mandate that the following 25 substances (identified by CAS number) be subject to new (or additional) Significant New Activity pre-import/manufacture notification obligations: 72-43-5 87-86-5 1582-09-8 1897-45-6 1912-24-9 3691-35-8 51-03-6 62-73-7 76-06-2 87-90-1 88-30-2 94-75-7 133-06-2 133-07-3 333-41-5 584-79-2 2921-88-2 8001-58-9 8003-34-7 10453-86-8 10605-21-7 12069-69-1 13356-08-6 20543-04-8 23564-05-8 “Activities” with these substances in excess of 100 kg per year…
Between 2010 and 2014, provincial governments from Ontario westward, as well as the federal government, implemented renewable fuel standard (RFS) regulations. Targeting both gasoline and diesel, the stated goal for these standards has been the presumed greenhouse gas emission reductions that come with ethanol and renewable distillate content, with rural economic opportunity to supply the mandated renewable content often mentioned as an ancillary benefit. This importance to the local agricultural economies of RFS can be seen in…
Environment Canada appears to be stepping back from its ambitious goal of the virtual ban of benzenamine, N-phenyl-, reaction products with styrene and 2,4,4-trimethylpentene (BNST) in Canada. By 2013, BNST was assessed as “toxic” under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, and included within the Prohibition of Certain Toxic Substances Regulations, 2012. Under the Toxic Substances Regulations, the use of BNST as an additive in lubricants was temporarily allowed until 2015. Other industry uses of…
The imposition of new restrictions upon chemical substance cyclohexanedicarboxylic acid, 1-butyl 2-(phenylmethyl) ester, could hardly have been newsworthy in Canadian environmental circles during the era of mega-infrastructure and carbon pricing. The plasticizer is used in sealants, coated textiles, and flexible tubing, with any direct exposure expected to be mainly by skin contact or perhaps inhalation at low levels. Environment Canada, in fact, estimates that “indirect exposure of the general population from environmental media is expected…
The International Joint Commission (IJC) is again at the forefront on waterborne pollutants. After their recent success in both the United States and Canada to obtain measures that will stem the flow of microbeads into North American waters, the IJC has begun a lobbying effort of the two national governments to expand their regulatory efforts to restrict the dissemination of microplastics more generally. Microplastics range in size between 0.333 mm and 5 mm in size…
For companies struggling with Canadian environmental compliance such as the: myriad reporting and permitting duties under Canada’s Chemical Management Plan, expanding scope of the NPRI and its uncertain interaction with provincial emissions registries; vagaries over the overlapping jurisdictions of Environment Canada and Health Canada or the Pest Management Regulatory Agency; or increased biotechnology regulation; stakeholder input is currently being sought regarding CEPA by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. In…