Managing
Understanding the 2012 Sunset Review:
What You Need to Know to Be Prepared
By Jennifer Rose and
Tom Hutcheson
The year 2012 is important to the organic industry. By October of 2012, the next “sunset review” must be completed. Before this deadline, dozens of materials currently allowed for use in organic farming and
processing will be (or already have been) reviewed by the National Organic Standards
Board (NOSB) to determine whether or not
their continued use will be allowed. Given
that the sunset review could dramatically
change the list of materials from which organic farmers and processors have to choose
in growing and manufacturing organic products, it is important to understand this process
and the concrete steps your company can
take to ensure you are prepared.
While the NOSB has already voted on
many materials, resulting in some upcoming
changes in the regulation that you should be
aware of, there are still dozens of items to be
voted on before the 2012 deadline, including
materials such as enzymes and tocopherols
(see the full list on page 42). If you have
thoughts or information to share with the
Board on any of these items, make sure to
prepare your public comment in time for the
Spring 2011 NOSB Meeting.
The Sunset Process: A Brief Introduction
When the Organic Foods Production Act
was first established in 1990, NOSB had to determine which materials would be allowed in
organic production and which would not.
This was a difficult decision because little information existed about several of these materials and organic versions of many basic
ingredients—like baking powder—were just
not available. To avoid hampering the organic
industry’s growth, NOSB created a list called
the National List of Allowed and Prohibited
Substances for organic production and processing (“handling”). This included synthetic
and natural materials that were found to be
safe as well as agricultural materials that were
not commercially available in organic.
According to the Act, each item on the National List is required to be reviewed by NOSB
five years after it is listed. The purpose of this
review process is to create an opportunity to
examine: a) whether a material is still
needed, b) whether any organic alternatives
have been discovered or created that could
replace the non-organic item included on the
National List, and c) whether any new information about a material—for example, about
its safety—has come to light.
As NOSB Materials Committee chairper-son Katrina Heinze describes it in her Materials Update, delivered at the October 2010
NOSB meeting, “Sunset is the opportunity to
revisit the continued need for the exemp-tion.[The purpose of] sunset review is to determine if conditions relevant to acceptance
of exemption (listing) have changed. The
sunset review process is not to add new substances to the National List, to change an existing annotation or to reinterpret unchanged
information and conditions.”
How the Process Works
Sunset review is part of the Federal rulemaking process. When a material is due for
review, the National Organic Program (NOP)
publishes a proposed rule in the Federal Register (see http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/the-federal-register/ indexes.html)
which serves to formally notify the public.
Then the NOSB puts materials that are up for
