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December 2015 • The PCB Magazine 69 Goldman: You are referring to the European ones? Abrams: Yes. They've been very active on regu- lations. The RoHS directive, the REACH regula- tion, those were monumental adjustments for the industry, not just getting away from lead, but from a compliance standpoint, because it shifted from what's at your facility to what's in your product. At that point, even if you're manufacturing in the U.S., you're manufac- turing a global product. You now have to be cognizant of regulations on your product all across the world. It forced companies, even if they were only domestic, to have a much more global focus. It focused the supply chain on working to- gether in a way they never had. For the end product manufacturers, that was something their suppliers worried about. The OEMs didn't have a plant. They didn't need to worry about it. Now it's about what's in the product, and they are the ones that are ultimately responsible. The family of data exchange standards started with the implementation of the RoHS directive and industry realizing it needed a way to deal with this. Goldman: That is a huge difference. Abrams: To go back to your question, certainly the data exchange standards are a big accom- plishment. IEC now has a data exchange stan- dard, and there were meetings just this week- end between IPC and IEC to work on further aligning the data exchange standards. But IPC is still viewed by many as the leader in this aspect. A lot of the wins that I can point out are where we made something a little less burden- some. Conflict minerals is an example. We lob- bied on that for three years. It was inserted into Dodd-Frank literally at 11 o'clock at night by the staff for the senator in question. People asked, "Why is the SEC regulating conflict minerals?" Well, it was because they were moving a finance bill, and that's where the senator had jurisdic- tion, and so that's where he stuck it. There's no logical reason. I definitely wouldn't put that in the win category, but after the law was passed, we worked with the SEC a lot, and as onerous as it is today, I think it would be much worse if we hadn't been involved. We're right now rolling up our sleeves in Eu- rope and seeing if we can continue some sen- sible response. The EU Commission, which we worked really closely with for over two years on conflict minerals, I think really heard our message about how devastating Dodd-Frank had been on industry, and how it had failed to accomplish its goals. So they proposed a vol- untary system, but the parliament was led on, I think, by sound bites and NGO lobbies and politics, of course, for mandatory regulations. Those debates are ongoing right now. We just held a conference on government regulation in Essen, Germany, where we discussed conflict minerals, along with RoHS exemptions, some of which are expiring, and the recent EU Court of Justice ruling on REACH "Once an Article, Al- ways an Article." We have had several big wins in my 15 years. One was in 2002. The EPA had proposed regulations in 2001 on effluent from wastewater treatment, mainly affecting our printed circuit board members. They make sure the wastewater has to be treated before it's discharged, and EPA sets limits for what needs to be in that waste- water. The regulations they proposed were based on sloppy data and math management. It wasn't even science. They were supposed to be based on technically achievable things, except IPC'S FERN ABRAMS: KEEPING UP WITH REGULATORY MATTERS FeATure inTerview " we have had several big wins in my 15 years. one was in 2002. The epA had proposed regulations in 2001 on effluent from wastewater treatment, mainly affecting our printed circuit board members. "