Chemical Watch Forum

The December CW briefing included an item entitled, "Will Companies Continue to Conceal Substance Identities."  This is not a neutral way of describing industry's protection of valuable commercial information.  There is no concealment:  the government has access to all of the information and it has the power to release it when there is a legitimate need to do so.  Companies seek to protect information from disclosure to competitors that would deprive them of the value of their innovations or formulas.  Without such protection, how would companies realize returns on their investments in developing new chemicals and new products?  Importantly, much innovation these days is focused on reducing the environmental footprint of products.  Without the protection of confidentiality for valuable commercial information, companies would often be unable to justify the costs of innovation.  In short, there can be greener products or there can be broad disclosure of valuable commercial information (event without a regulatory purpose), but you can't have both. There certainly have been excessive claims of confidentiality under the U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act, but a mindless drive toward disclosure via categorical exclusion from protection of certain types of commercial information would be counterproductive as well as economically damaging.