Submission on the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Hazardous Substances Assessments) Amendment Bill
Francis Eatherington, Flickr
The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) decides which chemicals and hazardous substances can be used in New Zealand and puts rules in place to manage the risks they may pose to people and the environment.
The intent of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Hazardous Substances Assessments) Amendment Bill is to improve the assessment and reassessment processes for hazardous substances, which is how the EPA decides whether to approve a substance and any rules around its use.
The primary change to the bill is to enable the EPA to make better use of data, assessments, and information from trusted international regulators.
The Commissioner endorses this change as he believes that not having to reinvent the wheel where good international information already exists would allow the EPA to direct its limited resources towards the part of the assessment relating to the New Zealand context. It would also shorten the time need to conduct assessments, thereby allowing the EPA to move on to other priorities.
In his submission, he outlines some risks and missed opportunities to be considered before the bill is enacted, namely:
- The new powers to use information from trusted regulators should be expanded to a wider range of work the EPA conducts.
- Once an overseas regulator has been recognised as trusted, there needs to be a provision to enable regular review of this decision.
- How the information from trusted international regulators is used by the EPA needs to be transparent to ensure public confidence.
The amendment bill also proposes a number of other improvements to the EPA’s process. The Commissioner supports the proposed new provisions, including the publication of a reassessments work plan and enabling the EPA to temporarily restrict the use of a hazardous substance in specified circumstances. These changes should make the EPA’s work more efficient and transparent.