JAPANESE OFFICIALS SEE BENEFIT IN NEW NORTH

C O N F I D E N T I A L TOKYO 005231 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR IO, EUR/ERA, EAP/J, EEB/TPP, AND OES/ETC EPA FOR RANDOLPH BRICKEY WHITE HOUSE FOR CEQ E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/13/2017 TAGS: SENV EIND ETRD JA SUBJECT: JAPANESE OFFICIALS SEE BENEFIT IN NEW NORTH AMERICAN CHEMICALS REGIME OVER THE EU'S REACH CLASSIFIED BY EMIN ROBERT F. CEKUTA FOR REASONS 1.4 B, D. ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Environment Ministry and METI officials expressed strong interest in the new U.S.-Canada-Mexico effort for managing high production volume (HPV) chemicals during meeting with EPA Assistant Administrator Jim Gulliford on November 8. The Japanese officials noted GOJ agreement with the U.S. approach, i.e., reducing the burden on industry by collecting only the data necessary to make practical, risk-based assessments of different HPV chemicals. The GOJ officials contrasted this approach with the EU's new REACH management scheme, saying that presenting the U.S. program at international meetings soon could help keep developing countries from basing their systems on REACH. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (SBU) The EPA Assistant Administrator for Pesticides and Prevention Jim Gulliford met with Ministry of Environment (MOE) and Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry (METI) officials October 8 to discuss the new collaborative effort, announced at the Security, Prosperity, and Partnership Leaders' Summit in August, on chemicals management for public health and environmental protection. The effort, combining long-standing U.S. HPV work with Canadian efforts on chemical categorization, will set goals on chemical inventories and make assessments of more than 9000 HPV chemicals by 2012. ¶3. (C) The Environmental Health Director-General at MOE, Masatoshi Ishizuka, told A/A Gulliford Japan has "great interest in monitoring the progress" of the initiative and that it would be a "good model" for the GOJ, which is considering a similar arrangement. Ishizuka said Japan would be interested as well to hear if the U.S. develops a similar program for managing heavy metals, especially for mercury; Japan wants to discuss a program to mitigate the global effect of the export of mercury at the Bangkok UNEP meeting. ¶4. (C) The METI Manufacturing Industries Policy Director- General, Keikou Terui, also told A/A Gulliford that Japan shares the philosophy that it is best to collect only the data necessary to make risk-based assessments of chemicals. However, Japan has done so for only about 1000 chemicals due to its limited resources. Terui contrasted the U.S. approach favorably with that of the EU's new REACH program, which he noted requires collection of data on all chemicals at the same level, regardless of whether those data are needed for making an assessment. China and other Asian countries are still considering what type of management schemes they want to implement, Terui said, and so it would be worthwhile to present the North American framework at upcoming APEC chemical dialogue meetings. Otherwise, he continued, those countries will focus on what REACH requires, rather than their own needs, and use REACH as a model rather than one less burdensome on industry. ¶5. (U) This cable was prepared subsequent to Assistant Administrator Gulliford,s departure from Tokyo. DONOVAN