EPA’s Flame Retardant Rule Offers Chemical Lesson for Businesses

An EPA rule restricting industrial uses of a popular flame retardant is causing headaches for equipment manufacturers and demonstrating how the nation’s chemicals law can upend global supply chains.

The regulation, developed during the Trump administration, bans a host of uses of the compound that can be found in forklifts, tractors, electric keyboards, and electron microscopes, among other products, called “articles.”

But the Environmental Protection Agency was besieged by industry pleas for help soon after the new administration came into office in January, so it took an unusual step. It announced in March that it wouldn’t enforce a key ...