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CBIC Control Number 

357759 

European Panel Federation 

Europaischer Holzwerkstoffverband 

Federation Europeenne des Panneaux a Base de Bois 

OPPT Document Control Office (DCO) 

Environmental Protection Agency 

EPA East Building 

Room 6428 

1200 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. 

Washington, DC 20460-0001. §§ 

Brussels, 9t h Octofe 20Eg^ 

— 

Re: Docket EPA-HO-OPPT-2012-0018 and EPA-HQ-OPPT-2011-0380 g 

cn 

Dear Sir, Madam, 

The European wood-based panels industries principally welcome the intention of the US EPA to 

established a harmonised US-wide regulation on the ..formaldehyde, emission of composite wood 

products to be aligned wherever possible with the existing provisions of the CARB regulations in 

California. 

However, we are worried about the fact that, the. statute provides the.-US EPA discretion in"some 

areas to vary from the California modeLancfea.number of'EPA's prpposals are markedly different. We 

ask as a matter of policy and of minimisation of regulatory burden that-distinctions between;.the state 

and federal requirements be made only rn the most compelling circurosftar^sj Coordination of the 

federal and state regulations is extremely important to avoid'confusion i\ - y streamline compliance.' 

Any substantial difference between the US<-wide- regulations and the CARB. [Ct'se willxreate confusion 

and duplicate costs. This is especially important .for the TPQpule, since EPA's^ v^&s&d 'administration 

of the .TPCs is, fundamentally differentifrom^the-C^ARB system. We ^reque- • what these are, coordinated and streamlined:as.,muchias..possibl.ei

and 'maybp it.could be envisages ^o.merge the.GARB 

regulations and procedures.intotthe-U$;<EPA rules. From'^a^starting^point, all Q-^RB^pproved TPCs 

should be accepted by the US EPA from the beginning and at least until their cut ,-ent CARB approval 

is up for review. 

The overlooking of the TPCs by I LAC and !AF looks to be a: pragmatic way in ore r to avoid having to 

set up. a large and. costly administration process within US EPA. Moyvever, care .hould be taken that 

these AB's do not inflate the, costs of the. TPC certification costs for the mr

 facturers. This is of 

particular importance for European manufacturers, since TPCs in Europe tr< .dependent and very 

expensive institutes. Unlike North American industry associations, EPF does £ operate its own TPC 

for a variety of reasons in particular also the credibility towards the authr as. On the other hand, 

the rules for recognising additional AB's are-unclear; Care should be t i it these have an as high 

objective credibility of the currently mentioned ones. Additionally, we to the requirement for 

TPCs to have, an office or an agent in the US. Since most. European TPCs do not certify North 

American mills, this would only add unnecessary costs. European TPCs are generally relatively big and 

highly credible institutes. Moreover, in case of any contact problems, they can easily be traced via 

their overlooking AB. 

FPF — RII P Mnntnva r 7 4 hn v 7 0 - R-lOflfl Rmcco k 
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Furthermore, we urge EPA to adopt performance-based formaldehyde emission requirements for 

composite panel products, without bias towards any resin or manufacturing technology employed to 

meet those requirements. Using performance-based requirements fosters advancement in all 

technologies and provides the widest array of options for panel manufacturers as well as the 

downstream chain of commerce, while at the same time ensuring that all products meet the specified 

emission levels. 

This principle is particularly applicable to ultra-low emitting formaldehyde ("ULEF") resins. EPA 

suggested in the Preamble that reduced testing for ULEF panels might be inappropriate. We believe 

that such products should be treated as they are under the CARB rule. Although EPA has discretion to 

develop separate regulations on ULEF resin, the statute, by directly incorporating the California levels 

for reduced testing, contemplated the reduced testing option for ULEF. The overall Congressional 

intent was clearly to treat ULEF resins similarly to the CARB approach. There are strong policy and 

practical reasons to do so. 

EPA justifies its disparate treatment of ULEF, in part, on the basis of a research study of ULEF 

products' emissions under elevated heat and humidity. This is inappropriate as the referenced study is 

covering only a very limited product range and the measurements are done with a particular method 

(EN 717-3 Flask method) that, although officially standardised in Europe, has very limited use 

(especially in daily factory production control testing) especially due to the relatively large variability 

on the results as a consequence of the method's emission decay sensitivity. Furthermore, the study's 

scientific findings "are neither new nor very impressive" according to analysis by Prof. Dr. R. 

Marutzky, former managing director of the famous Wilhelm-r^lauditz-lnstitute for Wood Research 

(WKI). It is general knowledge that "formaldehyde is liberated from formaldehyde-based resins by a 

hydrolytic reaction (reverse of the polycondensation) and such a reaction is accelerated by 

temperature and moisture. That the formaldehyde release a non formaldehyde based resin is not 

affected by temperature and moisture is a trivial finding and also not very impressive". 

"The facts about the influence of temperature and humidity on emissions of UF-bonded panels -

independent of the type of panel - are well known since more than 30 years, topic of a lot of 

publications and in line with emission models such as the ANDERSEN-, the HOETJER- or the WKIequation." According to Prof. Marutzky, "the impact of such a behaviour has to be reflected in 

connection with the ventilation rate. In regions with humid and warm climate, as proposed in the 

FRIPOSED study, the ventilation rate of rooms is usually much higher than in in regions with a 

moderate or cold climate, through use of mechanical climate condition facilities or opening of 

windows. You can see this fact clearly in Europe, where the contamination of indoor air by 

formaldehyde or other WOCs and VOCs is definitely a problem of North and Central Europe 

countries but not of the regions in the Mediterranean area. Another positive impact of a humid 

climate has be shown in a European research project about 20 years ago. Under humid climate 

conditions, UF bonded particleboards showed a much faster decrease of formaldehyde on a long term 

that under dry climate conditions ("accelerated ageing"). A similar behaviour is obvious for other 

wood based panel types)." 

Moreover, we strongly oppose to the extremely strict requirement that plants cannot ship panels until all 

formaldehyde quality control tests are finished. This would create tremendous obligations for additional 

stocking of panels for prolonged periods of time. In practice, all European panel producers use derived 

factory production control methods that provide sufficient information that panels will achieve the 

relevant limit values in the quality control testing with a safety margin. It is the obligation of the 

manufacturer to ensure a sufficient safety margin and to recall any shipped panels in case ultimately the 

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Last but not least, we consider it inappropriate and unpractical to oblige manufacturers to disclose test 

results on their website or in any other public way. It is also inappropriate to disclose business confidential 

data from e.g. product/resin formulations on public websites. 

We kindly thank US EPA experts to take our concerns into consideration and to adapt the proposed 

regulations accordingly. We remain at your disposal for explaining our concerns in more detail. Please do 

not hesitate to contact us if you need any further clarification. 

Secretary General 

EPF/2013-225-KW