Judge Sets June Compliance Deadline for Formaldehyde Rule

Furniture World News Desk on 3/18/2018

The American Home Furnishings Alliance (AHFA) recently announced that a federal judge has signed an agreement between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Sierra Club, setting a new June 1, 2018, compliance deadline for the federal formaldehyde rule and settling a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club last October.

The American Home Furnishings Alliance (AHFA) represented the residential furniture industry in the settlement negotiations. The agreement was reached last Friday, March 9.

U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White previously ruled on February 16 that the EPA had illegally delayed the compliance deadline within the Formaldehyde Standards for Composite Wood Products Act, which is Title VI of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Under the federal rule originally finalized in December 2016, EPA set a December 2017 deadline for wood products to comply with the formaldehyde limits established in the standard. But the agency later extended the deadline to December 2018, attempting to adjust the compliance timeline to reflect a delay in the rule’s effective date dictated by the Trump Administration.

Last October, the Sierra Club and A Community Voice-Louisiana filed a lawsuit challenging the EPA’s year-long delay of the compliance deadline.

In an amicus brief filed with the district court on behalf of the industry, AHFA pointed out that reverting to the December 2017 compliance date would have retroactive consequences for composite wood products sold, supplied, offered for sale, manufactured or imported into the United States since that time. Products that comply with the EPA’s emission limits could not be certified or labeled as compliant until the EPA issued its “correlation rule” – which didn’t occur until February 7 of this year.

The correlation rule is a provision allowing use of California Air Resources Board (CARB) methods for testing and confirming compliance with formaldehyde emission limits.

Judge White agreed with the Sierra Club that the EPA had exceeded its authority when it granted industry a one-year extension for compliance. However, to avoid the substantial disruption of a retroactive order – which AHFA argued would cost the residential furniture industry billions of dollars in products suddenly deemed unsaleable – the judge agreed to delay vacatur of the deadline extension and give the parties until March 9 to agree on a reasonable compliance deadline.

In accepting the June 1, 2018, compliance deadline to which all parties agreed, the judge wrote: “This accommodation ensures that the vacatur applies prospectively, provides fair notice to the affected industries, and avoids treating any composite products manufactured or imported between December 12, 2017, and June 1, 2018, as being noncompliant.”

In addition to establishing the June 1 compliance deadline, the ruling further allows regulated composite wood panels and finished products containing those panels that are manufactured or imported prior to March 22, 2019, and certified as compliant with CARB Phase 2 or TSCA Title VI emissions standards to be labeled compliant. The certification must come from a third-party certifier approved by CARB and recognized by EPA.

The joint agreement can be read HERE.

Several additional associations, including the Composite Panel Association, International Wood Products Association, Kitchen Cabinet Manufacturers Association, National Association of Home Builders and Window and Door Manufacturers Association participated in the resolution of the court’s order. EPA estimates that the formaldehyde regulations apply to about a million regulated entities.

“In September 2001, AHFA staff attended the first industry stakeholder meeting in California as officials there began examining formaldehyde emissions from composite wood products,” says AHFA CEO Andy Counts. “Those meetings resulted in CARB’s adoption of a formaldehyde standard in 2008, and that standard formed the basis of the formaldehyde emission limits adopted by the U.S. Congress in 2010.” AHFA remained integrally involved as the EPA developed the implementation rules for the federal standard, including the last 15 months of debate over the compliance timeline.

Counts points out that, on several occasions, AHFA’s intervention helped prevent provisions in the federal rule that would have imposed enormous financial burdens for all companies using composite wood panels in their finished products. He adds: “AHFA has been at the table on the home furnishings industry’s behalf on this issue for 16 years. We are grateful to our AHFA member companies, who make this level of industry representation possible.”

More about the AHFA: The American Home Furnishings Alliance, based in High Point, N.C., represents more than 200 leading furniture manufacturers and distributors, plus over 150 suppliers to the furniture industry worldwide.