Posted in: Industry News
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Industrial Surface Coating Regulation Update

Posted on Friday, August 1, 2014

The Powder Coating Institute has partnered with the American Coating Association to bring members quarterly updates on legislation and regulatory issues affecting the powder coating industry.

Industrial surface coatings, including powder coatings, are applied to original equipment manufacturing (OEM) parts. The volatile organic compound (VOC) and hazardous air pollutant (HAP) content of these coatings are regulated at the federal, state, and local levels. The following is an overview of these regulations.

VOC Regulations. Most States and many of the local California Air Districts already regulate the VOC content of the industrial surface coatings in coating application facility. The facilities may also have operating permits that regulate the VOC content of coatings. These rules vary considerably, depending on where the facility is located and the substrate being coated. States and air districts that need additional emission reductions for their Ozone implementations plans often adopt more stringent VOC requirements for industrial surface coatings.

HAP Regulations. Industrial surface coating operations are typically categorized as either “area” or “major” depending upon potential HAP emissions. Area sources are facilities that have potential HAP emissions. Area sources are facilities that have potential HAP emissions of less than 10 tons per year of a single HAP or 25 tons combined HAP emissions.

Conflict Minerals Update. As reported in previous regulatory updates, the US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) conflict minerals rule requires all U.S. publically traded companies that manufacture or contract to manufacture products for which conflict minerals (any amount of the following: tin, tungsten, tantalum, gold) are necessary to the products’ functionality or production are covered by the scope of the Conflict Minerals Rule.

PCI members can read these updates in their entirety in the Members-Only section of PCI’s website. For more on becoming a PCI member, contact Tamara Hancock at thancock@powdercoating.org.