States such as California and the states that make up the Mid-Atlantic and New England regions have begun to legislate and implement their own, more strict clean air regulations. As an example, California is continuing to impose stricter regulations within the SCAQMD (South Coast Air Quality Management District), while the northeast states are implementing the OTC (Ozone Transport Commission) regulations for architectural coatings. With these changes, the consumer and industrial paint shelves are starting to look a lot different then they did 10 years ago when fewer regulations allowed the continued use of high VOC, solvent-based coatings. When we take a closer look at how these regulatory districts are challenging the chemistry of industrial coatings when compared to National AIM Rules, we see that the emission ceiling for the AIM Ruling begins to look extremely high when we compare the numbers. As an example, the Federal AIM VOC limit for varnish is 450 grams of VOC's per liter, whereas varnish used in the OTC cannot exceed 350 grams per liter of VOC’s, and varnishes used within the SCAQMD are limited to 275 grams per liter regardless of the solvent platform type (water or aromatic solvent). Likewise, the National AIM Rule for wood lacquer is 680 grams per liter whereas the OTC limits are 550 and South Coast is 275 grams respectively. So as we are now learning, various regions of the U.S. are enacting stricter standards over the federal clean air rules which drives the coatings industry to adjust and adapt to the stricter rulings of the States if they wish to continue to sell product within these jurisdictions...
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