Chemicals & EPA

Chemical entries reward preparation more than any other category we handle. The information that decides the outcome, what the substance is, whether it is on the inventory, what it will be used for, is known months before the shipment exists. Almost every hold we are asked to fix on someone else’s entry comes from that information never having been collected.

The TSCA certification

The importer certifies with each shipment either that the chemical substances comply with the statute, or that they are not subject to it because they are regulated elsewhere as a pesticide, food, drug, cosmetic or similar. The certification is filed as part of the entry, in the importer’s name, and it is a statement to the government rather than a form for the file.

To certify positively, the substance has to be on the TSCA Inventory or fit an exemption, such as research and development, test marketing, or one of the polymer and low volume exemptions. Anything else is a new chemical, and a new chemical needs a pre-manufacture notice with a review period measured in months. That is not a problem that can be solved while a container sits at a terminal, which is why we ask for the composition early.

The trap that catches careful importers is the significant new use rule. A substance can be listed on the Inventory and still be restricted for a particular use or form. Checking the Inventory and stopping there produces a confident, wrong certification.

There is also a live phase-down layer. Rules finalised under section 6 restrict or eliminate a set of widely traded solvents and industrial chemicals, including methylene chloride, trichloroethylene, perchloroethylene, carbon tetrachloride, 1-bromopropane and chrysotile asbestos, on dates that step through the next several years. If one of those is in your formulation, the tariff rate is not the question worth asking. Separately, the reporting rule covering per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances reaches importers of articles that contain them, and its submission window has been moved more than once. Check the current date rather than a remembered one.

The rest of the alphabet

• Pesticides. A registered product needs its registration number and a notice of arrival filed before the shipment lands, so the agency can decide whether to look at it. The category is wider than people expect: disinfectants, sanitisers and articles treated with a preservative that make a protective claim are all inside it.
• Refrigerants. Hydrofluorocarbon imports are counted against allowances under the phase-down, with cylinder labelling and tracking requirements attached. Importing without allowances is not a paperwork error, it is an enforcement case, and this is an area of active seizure.
• Hazardous materials. The shipping description, UN number, packing group and placarding follow the transport rules, but they have to agree with what the customs entry says the goods are. When the safety data sheet, the dangerous goods declaration and the entry describe three slightly different products, that discrepancy is what an examination finds.
• Consumer end use. Solvents, adhesives and coatings sold to the public bring product safety requirements with them, including packaging rules for certain substances.

Duty, and the appendices most people miss

Chapters 28 and 29 have their own duty logic. Two appendices to the tariff schedule admit listed products free of duty, one for pharmaceutical products and one for intermediate chemicals used in dyes, each claimed with its own special programme indicator. They are indexed by chemical abstracts number, not by product name, so a broker who classifies from the product description alone will never find them. We check by CAS number as a matter of routine. Paying six and a half percent on something that has been free for years is a common and completely avoidable loss, and it is recoverable only within the correction and protest windows.

Above the column one rate sit the Section 301 lists, which cover a great deal of Chinese origin chemistry, and the country-based tariff actions taken under the emergency economic powers statute. A separate national security investigation touching pharmaceutical products and their inputs has been running, and we are not going to guess its result here. If you import intermediates, it is worth knowing the file is open. Our antidumping and countervailing guide covers the other layer, which reaches a long list of commodity chemicals.

What we need from you

• A current safety data sheet for every product, in the version that matches the goods being shipped.
• CAS numbers and percentage composition for mixtures. Confidential formulations can be handled, but somebody has to certify to EPA and that somebody is the importer of record.
• The intended use, in plain words. Use decides whether a rule applies more often than identity does.
• Registration numbers for pesticides and allowance details for refrigerants.
• The dangerous goods declaration your forwarder is filing, so we can confirm it and the entry describe the same product.
• A bond sized for the duty, since chemical shipments in the tariff actions can carry far more duty than their invoice value suggests.