4 minutes with… Kathleen M. Roberts, Executive Director, Biobased and Renewable Products Advocacy Group

Tell us about your company and it’s role in the Advanced Bioeconomy.

BRAG provides a platform for organizations engaged in biobased chemistries to identify regulatory barriers for their unique products and to work collectively to address them. BRAG tackles regulatory hindrances related to commercialization of biobased products and works to improve public awareness of the benefits of these products.

Tell us about your role and what you are focused on in the next 12 months.

In the very near term, BRAG will engage with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding our petitions for partial reporting exemptions for biodiesel under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rule. Although not well-discussed among the biofuel and biochemical conferences, the reporting burden associated with TSCA in general and CDR in particular, is significant. Filling out the CDR form can take upwards of 100 hours per chemical. For small companies, finding that sort of time for non-commercial work is difficult. Achieving a partial reporting exemption for biodiesel through BRAG’s petitions will save those companies about 85 of those 100 hours.

BRAG will also focus on reviewing with key EPA staff and other D.C. decision-makers new technologies and beneficial products from the biobased chemical industry. Working together, we hope to identify and resolve regulatory barriers keeping these new products from commercialization.

What do you feel are the most important milestones the industry must achieve in the next 5 years?  

A better appreciation of the existing regulatory framework by new companies and cooperative efforts among those stakeholders to achieve an even regulatory playing field for new biobased chemical products against existing products.

If you could snap your fingers and change one thing about the Advanced Bioeconomy, what would you change? 

I wish U.S. stakeholders more readily embraced the benefits and opportunities coming out of the biobased chemical industry, and had an increased recognition and understanding of what is possible.

Of all the reasons that influenced you to join the Advanced Bioeconomy industry, what single reason stands out for you as still being compelling and important to you?  

We are far beyond the world of “possibilities” or “what ifs” in the renewable space. Today’s innovations will be tomorrow’s solutions.

Where are you from? 

My dad was in the Navy, which meant moving every three or four years, so I do not really have a “hometown.” I have, however, always been partial to the New England area.

What are 3 books you’d want to have with you, if you were stranded on a desert island

1. The complete collection of “Calvin and Hobbes” (comic books)

2. Cooking with Coconuts

3. How to Escape a Desert Island

What’s your favorite city or place to visit, for a holiday?  

Any ski resort out West with at least six inches of fresh powder.