April 9, 2020: With the whole of the US in lock down, Battery Council International has been intervening at a federal and state level to ensure that battery manufacturers stay open.

BCI has argued successfully that making batteries is an essential service, vital for providing back-up power at a time when critical medical facilities are needed more than ever.

Less well known to the public, batteries are also vital in keeping supply chains running, from forklift and pallet trucks picking orders of personal protective equipment and other supplies in warehouses to the combustion engine vehicles to get it all from storage to hospitals.

“Batteries are critical to the continuity of telephone systems, mobile phones, emergency call centres, generators, UPSs,” says Roger Miksad, BCI executive vice president and general counsel and a former partner at law firm Wiley Rein.

“This is all life-critical equipment for handling dips in power, or when moving patients between rooms so ventilators and so on can run while they’re not plugged in, as well as plug any power gaps while large generators bring power back.

“When we started to see the Covid-19 business curtailment orders coming out of various state governments, BCI very quickly engaged with regulators, elected officials and our members to make sure that we were recognized [as an essential service].

“We argued there was a need to keep our businesses and manufacturing facilities open with appropriate worker safety measures added so we were able to deliver the batteries needed for those critical machines and services.”

Full details of BCI’s work for the past year and future strategies will be published in Batteries International’s BCI Yearbook, which will be made available to every delegate in print and digital format just after the virtual convention on April .

It describes how different states have different agendas when it comes to occupational safety, with Washington proving one of the trickiest.

It will give updates on California’s approach to various pending legislation, for instance the Safer Consumer Products issue, and at federal level, how BCI is tackling a host of agencies with different criteria being considered that could have huge implications for the lead battery and recycling industries.

As always – Batteries International will keep you informed of it all.

Reprinted from:https://www.batteriesinternational.com/2020/04/09/bci-steps-up-to-ensure-lead-batteries-deemed-an-essential-industry-during-covid-19-crisis/(If there is any infringement liability, please inform us in time, we will delete the content immediately, thank you.)