WASHINGTON — Members of the Roof Coatings Manufacturers Association (RCMA) met with their members of Congress on Capitol Hill last Wednesday, July 15 as part of the association’s Summer Meeting and Legislative Day.

More than 30 RCMA members participated in the Legislative Day, which entailed paying visits to members of Congress and key congressional staffers from their states and districts. RCMA scheduled meetings with more than 80 congressional offices, offering opportunities for manufacturers and suppliers to the industry to communicate to lawmakers the issues of importance to the roof-coatings industry.

“The meetings on Capitol Hill gave RCMA members the chance to highlight the issues that are important to our industry,” said John Ferraro, RCMA’s executive director. “It was clear many of the senators, representatives and legislative staffers we met with were receptive to these industry issues, and therefore RCMA will be continuing the dialogue with these congressional offices.”

In particular, RMCA members discussed three main issues of interest to the roof coatings industry: opposing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from further lowering the National Ozone Standard, supporting the Clean Air, Strong Economies (CASE) Act and advocating for a federal tax credit for reflective roof coatings.

Opposing the EPA from further lowering the National Ozone Standard.The RCMA opposes the EPA’s proposal to lower the National Ozone Standard. Reductions to the standard have resulted in implementation of hundreds of regulations that created a tremendous regulatory burden. Consequently, the rule forced industries to spend billions of dollars to reformulate their products to achieve new volatile organic compound (VOC) content limits. Over the last few decades, 90 percent of VOC content has been eliminated from roof coatings, and further reduction of VOCs can have a wide variety of unintended consequences. 

Supporting the CASE Act.The RCMA supports the CASE Act (Senate Bill 751 and House Bill 1388). The bill would prohibit the U.S. EPA from lowering the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) until at least 85 percent of counties that are in nonattainment areas have attained the standard.

Advocating for a federal tax credit for reflective roof coatings.To incentivize building owners to make the investment to save energy and reduce roofing waste, the RCMA supports the creation of a federal tax credit for reflective roof coatings applied to low-slope roof surfaces on multi-family residential, commercial and industrial buildings.

 For more information, visit www.roofcoatings.org.