Collaboration on advocacy, research, and required testing through consortia is key for entities in the industrial, agricultural, and specialty chemical spaces. Leveraging resources to meet research, testing, regulatory, advocacy, and other shared obligations to promote and advocate issues of shared concern allows participating entities to reduce resources and maximize impact. B&C® Consortia Management, L.L.C. (BCCM) takes efficiency and efficacy one step further for consortia members through our consortia management services.
BCCM creates and maintains the operational framework for consortia so that members can focus on substantive issues most pertinent to their needs and essential to their success. We provide core management services along the operational hierarchy, from strategic business and legal counsel to basic administrative support. We structure and manage consortia to conform with the realities of the industrial, agricultural, and specialty chemical business communities, and offer a variety of state-of-the-art platforms to ensure consortia participants have a business organizational model that allows seamless access to and communication with the consortia and their business affairs.
What We Do
Administrative and Management Services: BCCM’s significant experience allows us to tailor our services to meet each consortium’s chemical-specific needs. We emphasize that the services listed below are comprehensive but not exhaustive — we are flexible and can provide additional or diminished support services to adapt our support services, as may be required.
- Legal –
- Prepare a consortium charter, by-laws, record retention policy, and an antitrust policy
- Provide scientific, regulatory, legal, and antitrust counsel
- Operational –
- Create a business and/or strategic plan
- Prepare requests for proposals and negotiate contracts with laboratories
- Develop product defense strategies, including: draft press releases and related documents, formulate responses to media and other inquiries, and prepare question and answer documents
- Administrative –
- Coordinate and schedule conference calls and meetings
- Organize and administer web conferences
- Coordinate and arrange annual or other meetings
- Prepare and distribute minutes for conference calls, web conferences, and meetings (usually within 24-48 hours)
- Conduct all recordkeeping duties
- Develop and maintain an e-mail list serve for internal communications
Communication Services: BCCM understands the necessity of timely and accurate communications among consortium members. To ensure all consortium members are aware of news and developments affecting their chemicals and have timely access to key documents, we offer a range of support services tailored to facilitate internal and external consortium communication needs.
- Informational –
- Track significant regulatory, scientific, and legal issues relevant to the consortium’s needs and long-term goals
- Prepare periodic updates (e.g., monthly, quarterly)
- Catalog and summarize chemical lists on which a chemical is included (including federal, state, and international lists)
- Alert consortium members promptly of relevant industry/government developments
- Marketing –
- Lead membership recruitment and promotional activities
- Develop professional brochures, advertising, promotional, and other informational materials (i.e., position statements, best practice guides)
- Technical –
- Design and maintain public and private websites
- External Relations –
- Build and maintain positive relationships with federal agencies (e.g., U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)), other user groups, Congress, and related entities
- Prepare for meetings with EPA and/or Congressional delegations
- Prepare for EPA site visits
- Additional Services –
- Serve as a clearinghouse for the amalgamation of what would otherwise be competitively sensitive information
- Coordinate and monitor testing activities
Financial Services: BCCM appreciates the importance to member companies of controlling costs, developing accurate budgets, and tracking costs and budget items carefully on a real time basis. By assessing management costs to each member company on a flat fee basis (exclusive of disbursements), BCCM provides member companies with a high degree of business certainty, transparency, and hands-on engagement in the generation of the consortium budget in which they participate.
- Prepare periodic financial statements (all financial information is prepared by a certified public accountant)
- Invoice member companies for annual fees, disbursements, special assessments, and other expenses
- Maintain consortium funds in a separate bank account
- Collect and distribute fees
- Conduct annual audits
Representative Engagements
- Butyl Benzyl Phthalate (BBP) Consortium: The BBP Consortium represents manufacturers, including importers, and users of BBP. Its mission is to serve the interests of BBP manufacturers, importers, and downstream users to address scientific, regulatory, and product stewardship issues concerning the health, safety, and/or environmental aspects of BBP, and to participate in the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Section 6 risk evaluation initiated by EPA. Membership in the BBP Consortium is open to manufacturers, importers, processors, and users of BBP and any interested participant in the BBP industry.
- Di-ethylhexyl Phthalate Consortium: The mission of the Di-ethylhexyl Phthalate Consortium is to advocate for sound science in EPA’s decision-making regarding testing needs for di-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), if required, to conduct cost- and time-effective regulatory testing, and to serve as a point of contact for stakeholders to coordinate with EPA regarding data needs and testing requirements. Members of the Di-ethylhexyl Phthalate Consortium are manufacturers, importers, processors, and users of DEHP.
- Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP) Consortium: The Dibutyl Phthalate Consortium represents manufacturers, including importers, and users of dibutyl phthalate (DBP). The Consortium advocates for sound science in EPA’s decision-making regarding DBP testing needs and, if required, conducting cost- and time-effective regulatory testing. The Consortium also serves as a point of contact for coordinating with EPA regarding data needs and testing requirements. Membership in the DBP Consortium is open to manufacturers, importers, processors, and users of DBP and any interested participant in the DBP industry.
- Ethylene Oxide Sterilization Association, Inc. (EOSA): EOSA is a non-profit organization whose members include ethylene oxide (EO) suppliers, medical device manufacturers, sterilization consultants, laboratories, contract sterilizers, analytical equipment and systems suppliers, and sterilization equipment manufacturers with a common interest in promoting the use of EO sterilization. EOSA works to educate industry, regulators, and the public on the uses and benefits of EO sterilization. EOSA also works to improve safety standards, foster industry communications, and provide a forum for many subjects related to EO sterilization. Membership in EOSA is open to any interested participant in the EO sterilization industry.
- Ethyleneamines Product Stewardship Discussion Group (EPSDG): EPSDG provides a forum for producers of ethylenediamine (EDA), diethylenetriamine (DETA), triethylenetetramine (TETA), tetraethylenepentamine (TEPA), polyethylenepolyamines (higher ethyleneamines), aminoethylethanolamine (AEEA), aminoethylpiperazine (AEP), and piperazine (PIP) to discuss and review product stewardship matters related to these products, in the hope of assisting in the safe use and handling of these chemicals by all who come into contact with them.
- EPSDG AEEA Testing Consortium: The EPSDG AEEA Testing Consortium includes U.S. producers of AEEA, a chemical commonly used in the manufacture of oil additives, fuel additives, chelating agents, fabric softeners, and surfactants, among other uses. Its mission is to address scientific, research, regulatory, and product stewardship issues concerning the health, safety, and environmental aspects of AEEA.
- Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) Coalition: The H2S Coalition focuses on opportunities to improve the safe use and handling of H2S and to advance advocacy positions. Members monitor and address regulatory, product stewardship, research, and related matters pertinent to H2S as they relate to members’ manufacturing processes.
- Metam Task Force: The Metam Task Force develops data to support the continued U.S. registration of metam pesticide products, to respond to regulatory requirements, and to engage in product stewardship efforts. The Task Force actively works on all of these issues. It conducts robust testing programs in connection with these issues and monitors and responds to regulatory actions.
- Methyl Isothiocyanate (MITC) Task Force: The MITC Task Force develops data to support the continued U.S. registration of agricultural fumigant pesticide products that generate MITC. The Task Force conducts robust testing programs for this purpose and monitors and responds to regulatory actions.
- MTBE Consortium: The mission of the MTBE Consortium is to address advocacy needs and testing requirements related to methyl tert-butyl ether’s (MTBE) listing on EPA’s Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP). The Consortium advocates for the use of sound science in EPA’s decision-making related to MTBE testing needs and conducts regulatory testing in a cost- and time-effective manner. Membership in the MTBE Consortium is open to entities that will be directly impacted by the MTBE EDSP test order.
- N-Methylpyrrolidone Producers Group, Inc. (NMP Producers Group): The NMP Producers Group is composed of the domestic manufacturers of N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP), and promotes the safe use of NMP and NMP derivatives through research, product stewardship, and outreach efforts within the framework of responsible chemical management. Membership in the NMP Producers Group is open to U.S. producers of NMP.
- North American Metals Council (NAMC): NAMC is an unincorporated not-for-profit group of metals-producing and metals-using associations and companies that focus on a broad range of science and policy issues that affect metals in a generic way. Membership in NAMC is open to all companies that are either producers or users of metals and minerals and to associations that represent such companies.
- NAMC – The Selenium Workgroup: The Selenium Workgroup is engaged in technical research on issues pertaining to selenium. Activities include funding independent research into ecological assessments, development of water quality tissue-based benchmarks, development of effects thresholds, identification of appropriate analytical methods, and management and treatment options for selenium where necessary.
- TDCE Consortium: The TDCE Consortium membership is composed of manufacturers, including importers, and processors of trans-1,2-Dichloroethylene (TDCE). Members are working jointly to respond to the testing requirements of a TSCA Section 4(a)(2) Test Order issued by EPA for TDCE. The Consortium serves as a platform for manufacturers and processors of TDCE to advocate for sound science in EPA’s decision-making regarding TDCE testing needs and to conduct cost- and time-effective regulatory testing. The Consortium also serves as a point of contact with EPA for the members regarding required testing and to obtain approval of study plans and methods to achieve a coordinated testing effort.
- Tetrahydrofuran Task Force: The Tetrahydrofuran Task Force represents U.S. manufacturers and users of tetrahydrofuran (THF). Its mission is to address scientific, regulatory, and product stewardship issues concerning the health, safety, or environmental aspects of THF or products using THF. Membership in the Task Force is open to producers and importers of THF and any interested participant in the THF industry.