Industrial Chemicals Environmental Management (Register) Act 2021 - (ICEMR Bill)

The Industrial Chemicals Environmental Management (Register) Act was established in 2021 to protect the environment and people by regulating industrial chemical use, handling, and disposal through a national register that assigns management standards to these chemicals based on environmental risk. 

The objectives of this Act are as follows: 

1. To give effect to an intergovernmental scheme involving the Commonwealth and the States that relates to the establishment of nationally consistent standards to minimize risks to the environment from industrial chemicals;
2. To provide for the government of the Commonwealth, as the national Government of Australia, to establish a register of scheduling of decisions for relevant industrial chemicals;
3. To provide for the Register to operate as a national scheme in that another law of the Commonwealth or a law of a State (i) may apply or adopt the Register (with or without modification; and (ii) may make provision for, or in relation to, its implementation and enforcement, as so applied or adopted; 
4. To reflect, through scheduling decisions for relevant industrial chemicals that are included in the Register, the views of the Commonwealth on the controls, including the risk management measures, that should be applied to those chemicals;
5. To regulate the conduct of the Commonwealth and persons employed or engaged by the Commonwealth in connection with the Register;
6. To contribute to meeting Australia’s international obligations in relation to industrial chemicals.  Source: fao.org