Hazardous Waste Management System; Modification of the Hazardous Waste Manifest System, 10204-10210 [E8-3615]
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revisions submitted by the State of
Montana on June 28, 2000 and April 16,
2007. The revisions update
Administrative Rules of Montana (ARM)
provisions for Particulate Matter, and
address Interstate Transport Pollution
requirements of section 110(a)(2)(D)(i) of
the Clean Air Act. On June 28, 2000, the
Governor of Montana submitted
revisions to ARM rules 17.8.101—
Definitions; 17.8.308—Particulate
Matter, Airborne; and 17.8.320—Wood
Waste Burners. The June 28, 2000
submittal included also a declaration
certifying the adequacy of the State SIP
in regard to the infrastructure-related
PM2.5 elements of section 110 of the
Clean Air Act (CAA). In the April 16,
2007 submission, the Governor
requested EPA’s review and approval of
the ‘‘Interstate Transport Rule
Declaration’’ adopted into the Montana
SIP on February 12, 2007. In that same
letter, the Governor rescinded the
State’s earlier request for approval of
Montana’s SIP in regard to the
infrastructure-related PM2.5 elements of
section 110 of the CAA. In light of this
rescission, EPA is not taking action on
this declaration. This action is being
proposed under section 110 of the Clean
Air Act.
In the ‘‘Rules and Regulations’’
section of this Federal Register, EPA is
approving the State’s SIP revision as a
direct final rule without prior proposal
because the Agency views this as a noncontroversial SIP revision and
anticipates no adverse comments. A
detailed rationale for the approval is set
forth in the preamble to the direct final
rule. If EPA receives no adverse
comments, EPA will not take further
action on this proposed rule. If EPA
receives adverse comments, EPA will
withdraw the direct final rule and it will
not take effect. EPA will address all
public comments in a subsequent final
rule based on this proposed rule. EPA
will not institute a second comment
period on this action. Any parties
interested in commenting must do so at
this time. Please note that if EPA
receives an adverse comment on an
amendment, paragraph, or section of
this rule and if that provision may be
severed from the remainder of the rule,
EPA may adopt as final those provisions
of the rule that are not the subject of an
adverse comment.
• https://www.regulations.gov. Follow
the on line instructions for submitting
comments.
• E-mail: videtich.callie@epa.gov and
mastrangelo.domenico@epa.gov.
• Fax: (303) 312–6064 (please alert
the individual listed in the FOR FURTHER
INFORMATION CONTACT if you are faxing
comments).
• Mail: Callie Videtich, Director, Air
and Radiation Program, Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), Region 8,
Mailcode 8P–AR, 1595 Wynkoop,
Denver, Colorado 80202–1129.
• Hand Delivery: Callie Videtich,
Director, Air and Radiation Program,
Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), Region 8, Mailcode 8P–AR, 1595
Wynkoop, Denver, Colorado 80202–
1129. Such deliveries are only accepted
Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:55
p.m., excluding Federal holidays.
Special arrangements should be made
for deliveries of boxed information.
Please see the direct final rule, which
is located in the Rules Section of this
Federal Register, for detailed
instruction on how to submit comments.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Domenico Mastrangelo, Air and
Radiation Program, U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, Region 8, Mailcode
8P–AR, 1595 Wynkoop, Denver,
Colorado 80202–1129, (303) 312–6436,
mastrangelo.domenico@epa.gov.
DATES:
Written comments must be
received on or before March 27, 2008.
AGENCY:
Submit your comments,
identified by Docket ID No. EPA–R08–
OAR–2007–0646, by one of the
following methods:
SUMMARY: This notice announces the
availability of additional information on
ADDRESSES:
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See the
information provided in the Direct Final
action of the same title, which is located
in the Rules and Regulations section of
this Federal Register.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Authority: 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.
Dated: January 29, 2008.
Carol Rushin,
Acting Regional Administrator, Region 8.
[FR Doc. E8–3339 Filed 2–25–08; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560–50–P
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
AGENCY
40 CFR Parts 260, 261, 262, 263, 264,
265, and 271
[EPA–HQ–RCRA–2001–0032; FRL–8534–1]
RIN 2050–AG20
Hazardous Waste Management
System; Modification of the Hazardous
Waste Manifest System
Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Notice of data availability and
request for comment.
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the electronic manifest (e-Manifest)
project. Specifically, EPA’s Office of
Solid Waste and Emergency Response
(OSWER) has made significant progress
on the e-Manifest project since the
publication of the April 18, 2006 public
notice, which announced and requested
comment on our intention to develop a
centralized web-based information
technology (IT) system that would be
hosted on EPA’s IT architecture.
However, a few issues raised by
commenters in response to the April
2006 public notice require further
analysis on our part, as we make
decisions concerning the e-Manifest
system.
We received strong support in
response to the April 2006 public notice
to establish a national web-based system
funded through user-fees. In addition,
commenters generally supported our
position that use of e-Manifests should
be at the election of the users rather
than mandatory. However, some
commenters expressed concern that an
optional system would create dual
paper and electronic systems.
Furthermore, industry and state
comments in response to our position to
allow confidential business information
(CBI) claims for e-Manifests differed.
Therefore, as explained in this notice,
we are soliciting additional comment on
EPA’s position on these two issues. We
remain committed to finalizing a federal
regulation, once the necessary
legislation is enacted, that will
authorize the regulated community to
use electronic manifests as the legal
equivalent of paper manifests, and will
consider the comments received on this
notice, as well as other comments
received from previous actions, before
we make a final decision.
DATES: Comments must be received on
or before April 11, 2008.
ADDRESSES: Submit your comments,
identified by Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–
RCRA–2001–0032 by one of the
following methods:
• www.regulations.gov: Follow the
on-line instructions for submitting
comments.
• E-mail: Comments may be sent by
electronic mail to: rcra-docket@epa.gov,
Attention Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–
RCRA–2001–0032.
• Fax: Comments may be faxed to
202–566–0272, Attention Docket ID No.
EPA–HQ–RCRA–2001–0032.
• Mail: Comments may be sent to
Environmental Protection Agency, EPA
Docket Center (EPA/DC), Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)
Docket, 5305T, 1200 Pennsylvania
Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20460,
Attention Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–
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RCRA–2001–0032. Please include a total
of two copies.
• Hand Delivery: Comments may be
hand-delivered to the Public Reading
Room, EPA West Building, Room 3334,
1301 Constitution Avenue, NW.,
Washington, DC, Attention Docket ID
No. EPA–HQ–RCRA–2001–0032. Such
deliveries are only accepted during the
Docket’s normal hours of operation, and
special arrangements should be made
for deliveries of boxed information.
Please include a total of two copies.
Instructions: Direct your comments to
Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–RCRA–2001–
0032. EPA’s policy is that all comments
received will be included in the public
docket without change and may be
made available online at
www.regulations.gov, including any
personal information provided, unless
the comment includes information
claimed to be Confidential Business
Information (CBI) or other information
whose disclosure is restricted by statute.
Do not submit information that you
consider to be CBI or otherwise
protected through www.regulations.gov
or e-mail. The www.regulations.gov Web
site is an ‘‘anonymous access’’ system,
which means EPA will not know your
identity or contact information unless
you provide it in the body of your
comment. If you send an e-mail
comment directly to EPA without going
through www.regulations.gov, your email address will be captured
automatically and included as part of
the comment that is placed in the public
docket and made available on the
Internet. If you submit an electronic
comment, EPA recommends that you
include your name and other contact
information in the body of your
comment and with any disk or CD–ROM
you submit. If EPA cannot read your
comment due to technical difficulties
and cannot contact you for clarification,
EPA may not be able to consider your
comment. Electronic files should avoid
the use of special characters, any form
of encryption, and be free of any defects
or viruses. For additional information
about EPA’s public docket, visit the EPA
Docket Center homepage at https://
www.epa.gov/epahome/dockets.htm.
Docket: All documents in the docket
are listed in the www.regulations.gov
index. Although listed in the index,
some information is not publicly
available, e.g., CBI or other information
whose disclosure is restricted by statute.
Certain other material, such as
copyrighted material, will be publicly
available only in hard copy. Publicly
available docket materials are available
either electronically in
www.regulations.gov or in hard copy at
the RCRA Docket, EPA/DC, EPA West,
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Room 3334, 1301 Constitution Ave.,
NW., Washington, DC. The Public
Reading Room is open from 8:30 a.m. to
4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday,
excluding legal holidays. The telephone
number for the Public Reading Room is
(202) 566–1744, and the telephone
number for the RCRA Docket is 202–
566–0270. Copies cost $0.15/page.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For
further information regarding specific
aspects of this document, contact
Richard LaShier, Office of Solid Waste,
(703) 308–8796, lashier.rich@epa.gov, or
Bryan Groce, Office of Solid Waste,
(703) 308–8750, groce.bryan@epa.gov.
Mail inquiries may be directed to the
Office of Solid Waste (OSW), (5304W),
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.,
Washington, DC 20460.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. General Information
A. Does This Rule Apply to Me?
This rule could affect up to 223,000
entities in upwards of 600 industries
involved in shipping approximately 12
million tons of RCRA hazardous wastes
annually, using 5.0 million EPA
Uniform Hazardous Waste Manifests
(EPA Form 8700–22 and continuation
sheets EPA Form 8700–22A). These
entities consist of about 15,000 RCRA
large quantity generator (LQG) waste
shippers, plus about 146,000 RCRA
small quantity generator (SQG) waste
shippers, plus about 350 waste
transporters, plus about 1,500 waste
receiving treatment, storage, disposal
facilities (TSDFs), plus 60,000
conditionally-exempt small quantity
generators (CESQGs),1 plus 23 state
governments known to collect paper
manifests as of 2004.2 If you have any
1 CESQGs are exempt from Federal RCRA
hazardous waste manifesting regulations, but at
least one state (CA) requires RCRA CESQGs to use
the EPA manifest for hazardous waste shipments.
We have included state-regulated CESQGs in the
count of possible affected entities for this notice in
order to provide a complete economic impact
estimate, not just a narrower Federal waste impact
estimate, because the operational scope of our
planned e-manifest system will encompass manifest
processing for state-regulated waste shipments, not
just Federal-regulated hazardous waste shipments.
2 As surveyed in 2004 with 49 states providing
responses, 23 state governments currently collect
completed paper manifests (source: ‘‘Analysis of
Site Identification Questionnaire Collected in June
and July of 2004’’, August 23, 2004, compiled by
Paula Canter, Ohio EPA Division of Hazardous
Waste Management, for the Association of State &
Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials). The
Michigan Department of Environmental Quality
surveyed state government agencies on this
question in January 2007, but only received 29
responses, so the older but more comprehensive
2004 survey is cited here. EPA estimates that these
23 states account for 0.74 million (35%) of the 2.14
million Federally-regulated hazardous waste paper
manifests per year, and 0.89 million (32%) of the
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questions regarding the applicability of
this rule to a particular entity, consult
the people listed under FOR FURTHER
INFORMATION CONTACT.
B. What Should I Consider as I Prepare
My Comments for EPA?
1. Submitting CBI. Do not submit CBI
information to EPA through
www.regulations.gov or e-mail. Clearly
mark the part or all of the information
that you claim to be CBI. For CBI
information in a disk or CD–ROM that
you mail to EPA, mark the outside of the
disk or CD–ROM as CBI and then
identify electronically within the disk or
CD–ROM the specific information that
is claimed as CBI. In addition to one
complete version of the comment that
includes information claimed as CBI, a
copy of the comment that does not
contain the information claimed as CBI
must be submitted for inclusion in the
public docket. Information so marked
will not be disclosed except in
accordance with the procedures set
forth in 40 CFR Part 2.
2. Tips for Preparing Your Comments.
When submitting comments, remember
to:
• Identify the rulemaking by docket
number and other identifying
information (subject heading, Federal
Register date and page number).
• Follow directions—The agency may
ask you to respond to specific questions
or organize comments by referencing a
Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) part
or section number.
• Explain why you agree or disagree;
suggest alternatives and substitute
language for your requested changes.
• Describe any assumptions and
provide any technical information and/
or data that you used.
• If you estimate potential costs or
burdens, explain how you arrived at
your estimate in sufficient detail to
allow for it to be reproduced.
• Provide specific examples to
illustrate your concerns, and suggest
alternatives.
• Explain your views as clearly as
possible.
• Make sure to submit your
comments by the comment period
deadline identified.
The contents of this notice are listed
in the following outline:
I. Background of E-Manifest System
II. Final Rulemaking Efforts
A. Submission requirements to system for
paper manifest copies
2.82 million state-regulated waste manifests
collected per year, representing a total 1.63 million
(33%) of the 4.96 million total paper manifests
completed per year (based on extrapolation from
the 2005 Federal hazardous waste shipment
tonnage reported in EPA’s 2005 RCRA Hazardous
Waste Biennial Report).
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B. Public access to electronic manifests and
CBI claims for manifest data
III. Request for Comments
I. Background of E-Manifest System
On May 22, 2001, EPA published a
notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM)
that proposed several major revisions to
the hazardous waste manifest system,
including proposed revisions aimed at
adopting an electronic manifesting
approach that would allow waste
shipments to be tracked electronically,
thereby mitigating the burdens and
inefficiencies associated with the use of
paper manifest forms (66 FR 28240).
Although comments generally
supported an electronic tracking
scheme, several significant issues were
raised that necessitated further analysis
and stakeholder outreach prior to
adopting a final e-Manifest regulation.
As a result, EPA held a two-day public
meeting on May 19–20, 2004, to discuss
and obtain public input on how best to
proceed with selecting and
implementing the future direction of the
e-Manifest. We heard from both the
hazardous waste management industry
and state government attendees at the
public meeting that there is a strong
consensus (a) in favor of establishing a
nationally centralized e-Manifest system
that would consistently and securely
generate and process electronic
manifests, and (b) that system users
would be willing to pay reasonable
service fees to fund the development
and annual operation of the system. The
full proceedings for the May 2004
public meeting have been posted on our
EPA Web site at https://www.epa.gov/
epaoswer/hazwaste/gener/manifest/eman.htm.
On April 18, 2006, we published a
Notice of Data Availability (NODA) to
request comment on our preferred
approach for electronically completing
and transmitting manifests through a
national, centralized e-Manifest system
that would be established and
maintained through user-fees.
Comments strongly supported EPA’s
suggested approach, but also raised a
few issues about which we are seeking
further comment. Specifically, waste
management industry commenters
questioned whether the resulting dual
paper and centralized e-Manifest system
would generate complexity and burden
that would frustrate the transition to
electronic manifests and thus,
undermine the paperwork burden cost
savings goal for the e-Manifest. State
agency comments indicated that their
support for electronic manifesting was
contingent upon there being a means to
ensure that a complete national set of
manifest data would be established,
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including data from both electronic
manifests and any remaining paper
manifests each year. According to these
commenters, a centralized system that
did not also contain the data from paper
manifests would not present a complete
picture of all RCRA and state regulated
hazardous wastes. Consequently, such a
system could result in some states
having to maintain duplicative
processes and systems to collect and
track the data from the remaining paper
forms. Thus, both industry and state
commenters urged EPA to develop the
final rule so as to lessen the effects of
dual paper and electronic manifest
systems.
The April 2006 notice also raised the
issue of potential claims of CBI
regarding the manifest data. Some state
government commenters generally did
not support CBI claims for manifest data
and deemed manifests to be public
records. Further, these commenters also
indicated that their states have state
legislation or policies which bar CBI
claims with respect to manifests. On the
other hand, comments from the waste
management industry supported
claiming manifest data as CBI. These
commenters were especially interested
in protecting customer information from
being mined from electronic manifests
by competitors. The industry members
are concerned that the availability of
this information electronically will
enable competitors to obtain more
immediate and efficient access to their
customer information. Public access to
paper manifests is currently limited by
a number of factors: (a) EPA does not
collect completed paper manifests,
except for export and import manifests
from transboundary waste shipments, so
public access requests to the vast
majority of completed paper manifests
must be made to state governments, (b)
as of 2004, only 23 state governments
collect completed paper manifests
representing only about one-third of the
5.0 million national manifests annually;
and (c) although EPA’s RCRA
Hazardous Waste Biennial Report
provides national hazardous waste
shipment and waste receipt data which
reveals EPA ID numbers, company
names and addresses for waste shippers
and waste receivers, the lag-time for
public access to the Biennial Report
data is at least one year 3 after any given
data reporting year.
3 EPA’s published schedule for data reporting and
report implementation milestones for the 2007
RCRA Hazardous Waste Biennial Report, is for
completion of the 2007 data year report by
December 2008, which represents exactly a oneyear lag-time between public access (i.e., data
availability over the internet) and the data year
(2007); the 2007 Biennial Report schedule is
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II. Final Rulemaking Efforts
We are currently developing the final
rule that will authorize the use of
electronic manifests, and will address
scope and other policy issues. However,
the promulgation of this rule is
contingent upon the enactment of
legislation providing EPA the authority
to collect user-fees to fund the
development and operation of the
system. Nevertheless, we continue to
move forward with the rulemaking in
anticipation of enactment of the needed
legislation.
Based on the comments received in
response to the April 2006 public notice
regarding the merits of an optional
electronic manifest approach and the
CBI issue, we are announcing and
requesting comment on our preferred
approaches for addressing submissions
of paper-based manifests to the
electronic manifest system and for
addressing CBI claims for manifest data.
These approaches are discussed below.
A. Submission Requirements to System
for Paper Manifest Copies
EPA agrees with waste management
industry and state government
commenters’ concern that it would not
be efficient to have an electronic
manifest system collecting data only
from electronic manifests, while another
paper-based system addresses the data
only from paper manifests. Therefore,
we believe that the system being
designed should be a unified system for
processing and distributing data from all
manifests, including data from paper
manifests. We considered several
options aimed at simplifying the process
for collecting paper forms and at
ensuring that the data collected from
both electronic manifests and paper
forms could be efficiently processed so
that a comprehensive set of manifest
data would be available to users and
regulators. We have identified a
preferred approach that we believe
provides the most efficient solution to
the dual paper/electronic systems
problem.
Under our preferred approach, the
final destination facility (i.e., designated
final TSDF), for each hazardous waste
shipment involving a paper manifest,
would be required to submit the top
copy (i.e., Page 1 of the 6-page set) of the
paper manifest form to the e-Manifest
system operator within 30 days of
receipt of the waste shipment. While the
published at https://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/
hazwaste/data/biennialreport/index.htm. However,
the December 2008 scheduled completion of the
2007 Biennial Report database represents a threeyear lag period relative to the prior biennial data
year 2005.
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e-Manifest system is not yet designed,
we envision that the designated facility
could mail a copy to the e-Manifest
system operator or could transmit an
image file to the EPA system so that the
e-Manifest system operator could key in
the data from the paper copies or image
files to the data system. Alternatively,
the designated facility could submit
both the image file and a file presenting
the manifest data to the system in image
file and data file formats acceptable to
the e-Manifest system operator and
supported by the Central Data Exchange
(CDX). For paper copies mailed to the
system by designated facilities, the eManifest system operator would create
or obtain an image file of each such
manifest, and store it on the system for
retrieval by state or federal regulators.
The e-Manifest system operator also
would key in, electronically scan using
an optical character recognition (OCR)
device, or otherwise transfer the federaland state-regulated waste data from
these paper copies to the e-Manifest
system. By having all manifest data in
electronic form, EPA could extract any
data regarding RCRA hazardous wastes
for inclusion in its data systems, while
the states could pull off data from the
system concerning both federally
regulated RCRA and state-regulated
wastes for processing in the states’ own
tracking systems.
We envision that designated facilities
would be required to pay a fee to the
system operator for processing the data
from these final copies of the paper
forms, and the fee would presumably
vary with the type of submission
(mailed copy, image file, or image plus
data file), as these submission types
would likely present a different level of
effort insofar as the processing steps
required to enter the form data into the
system. It is likely that the fee paid by
the designated facility would be passed
on to the generator (i.e., the designated
facility’s customer). We estimate that
the paperwork burden cost to TSDFs for
submitting a copy of the final manifest
could be $1.95 per paper manifest, for
an incremental (i.e., over current
baseline) annual cost to TSDFs of
between $1.6 million and $6.5 million
per year. In addition, we estimate the
possible fee that EPA’s e-Manifest
system operator (or other EPAdesignated e-Manifest affiliate) might
charge TSDFs for receiving paper
manifests and for transferring (i.e.,
imaging and keypunching) paper
manifest data to the e-Manifest system,
could be between $0.25 to $0.75 per
paper manifest, for an incremental (i.e.,
over current baseline) annual cost to
TSDFs of between $0.2 million and $2.9
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million. On a combined basis, we
estimate these two components of paper
manifest processing incremental costs to
TSDFs could total between $1.8 million
and $9.4 million annually, representing
an average incremental cost to TSDFs of
$2.20 to $2.70 per paper manifest. We
invite public comment on our approach
and the cost estimates.
We believe such an approach
simplifies manifest copy submissions
for the regulated TSDFs, who in the
future would only need to provide
designated facility copies to one
location—the national centralized eManifest system—rather than supply
copies to the numerous state agencies
that now collect a copy of the final
manifest. Further, it focuses the federal
collection effort on a copy of the final
paper manifest forms from the
designated facilities, which provide the
best accounting of the quantities and
types of hazardous wastes that were
actually received for management. We
believe that providing a means to collect
a complete set of hazardous waste
receipts data from RCRA TSDFs (the
merged set of paper and electronic
manifest data), also may in the future
provide EPA with the means to replace
biennial reporting by TSDFs of waste
receipts data with a much simpler
approach that relies upon the
designated facility data reported to the
e-Manifest system.4
We also believe that there are a
number of benefits of this approach to
state programs. As states are connected
to the e-Manifest system through EPA’s
National Environmental Information
Exchange Network, they would be able
to pull off the image files and the data
keyed from paper manifests from this
central processing service, just as they
would be able to obtain the data and
presentations of electronic manifests
from the eXtensible Markup Language
(XML) schemas and stylesheets
transmitted on the e-Manifest system.
This national data system also presents
a much more efficient approach that can
eliminate the need for discrete state
systems designed to capture manifest
data.
In addition, as the e-Manifest system
operator would be able to assess
appropriate fees for the paper
processing and data entry activities
necessary to process the data from paper
forms and enter them into the eManifest system, the actual costs of
providing these services would be
recovered by the system operator from
4 EPA intends to publish a notice and seek
comment on potential changes to the Hazardous
Waste Report (i.e., Biennial Report) before any
changes are made.
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the designated facility. Since we expect
that electronic manifests will be much
more efficient to process than paper
forms, the differential fees that are
established for paper and electronic
manifest processing likely would
operate as an additional incentive for
the transition to electronic manifests.
While we intend to clarify in the final
rule that the use of the electronic
manifest format would be optional for
members of the regulated community,
our preferred approach to collect a copy
of the final paper manifest forms from
designated facilities and to process the
data from these paper forms centrally
means that these designated facilities
will be required to interact with the eManifest system (i.e., submitting data
either electronically or by mail and
paying established fees). Thus, this
NODA confirms our intention to have a
single national hazardous waste
database.
Facilities that elect to use the
electronic manifest format would
submit their manifest information
electronically as a natural consequence
of participating in the e-Manifest
system. The e-Manifest system would be
designed for the purpose of distributing
electronic manifest data among the
users and regulatory agencies, while the
electronic manifest information is being
obtained, processed, and transmitted
electronically via the e-Manifest system.
On the other hand, those facilities and
hazardous waste handlers that choose to
use the paper manifest forms or are
presented with paper forms rather than
electronic manifest formats, would need
to process the paper manifest forms
physically in the conventional manner
that has been the norm since the
uniform hazardous waste manifest form
was introduced in 1984. However, in
place of sending a copy of the final
manifest directly to the destination
state, the final rule would require the
designated facility to send Copy 1 of the
paper manifest form to EPA’s e-Manifest
system operator. Thus, the designated
facilities would be required to submit a
copy of the final manifest to the eManifest system, either in the supported
electronic format or as a paper copy,
and pay a fee for this service. In other
words, the use of the electronic manifest
format would be voluntary under the
final rule, although the submission of
either a completed paper or electronic
manifest to the EPA system operator and
payment of an associated fee in every
case would be required of designated
facilities. Once this requirement is
effective, and all copies of the final
manifest (electronic or paper) from
designated facilities are being submitted
directly to EPA’s e-Manifest system
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operator, the states would be able to
obtain their copies of the final manifest
and data from the e-Manifest system
through their computer systems on the
National Environmental Information
Exchange Network. It is EPA’s intent
that the submission of the final paper
manifest copy to the e-Manifest system
would replace the requirement to
supply paper manifests directly to the
states. Since the states would have
nodes in place on the Exchange
Network for receiving manifest copies
from the system, it would no longer be
necessary for the states to require the
direct submission of paper copies to the
states. Thus, the paper copy submission
requirement could replace the
requirement for facilities to submit
copies of the final manifest to the states.
Note that the facilities that receive paper
manifests will still need to retain a
paper manifest copy among their own
facility records for the 3-year record
retention period in accordance with
current requirements. We request
comment on our recommendation to
collect a copy of the final electronic and
paper manifest forms from designated
facilities and to process the data from
these forms centrally.
B. Public Access to Electronic Manifests
and CBI Claims for Manifest Data
1. Individual Manifest Records and
Commercial Confidentiality Concerns.
With the exception of export and import
manifests from transboundary waste
shipments, EPA previously has not
generally collected hazardous waste
manifests. While data from export or
import manifests have been claimed as
CBI in the past, since the adoption of
the new hazardous waste manifest form
(EPA Form 8700–22) and continuation
sheet (EPA Form 8700–22A) (70 FR
10776 (March 4, 2005); 71 FR 19842,
19847 (April 18, 2006)), our records
indicate that no CBI claims have been
made at this time regarding any of the
data contained in these manifests. Thus,
until now, the Agency has not had a
need to determine any national policy
with respect to the eligibility of manifest
data for CBI claims. Based on the
information now available to EPA on
this question, EPA has concluded that
information contained in individual
hazardous waste manifest records,
including any individual electronic
manifests that may be submitted and
collected electronically through the eManifest system, is essentially public
information and therefore is not eligible
under federal law for treatment as CBI.
The effect of this decision is that EPA
would be making a categorical
determination that it will not accept any
CBI claims that might be asserted in the
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future in connection with processing,
using, or retaining individual paper or
electronic manifests. This decision, we
believe, should apply prospectively
from the effective date of the e-Manifest
final rule because the Agency has not
previously announced this position and
thus it would be unfair or inappropriate
for the Agency to release such
information, particularly for those
companies that have previously made
such a claim. Thus, it would not impact
any CBI claims or any determinations
made in the past by EPA in resolving
manifest-related CBI claims. Our
rationale is explained in the following
paragraphs.
First, we believe that any CBI claim
that might be asserted with respect to
individual manifest records would be
extremely difficult to sustain under the
substantive CBI criteria. 40 CFR Part 2,
Subpart B, and 40 CFR 260.2. As
manifests are shared with several
commercial entities while they are being
processed and used, a business
concerned with protecting its
commercial information would find it
exceedingly difficult to protect its
individual manifest records from
disclosure by all the other persons who
come into contact with its manifests.
For example, a business desiring to
protect commercial information in the
manifest context would need to enter
into and enforce non-disclosure
agreements or similar legal mechanisms
with all its customers and other third
parties and affected interests who might
also be named as waste handlers on its
manifests or who otherwise might be
expected to come into contact with its
manifests. Moreover, as many states
now require the submission of generator
and/or TSDF copies of manifests, and
the data from these manifests are often
made publicly available or reported in
federal and state information systems, it
seems apparent to EPA that much of the
information that might be claimed now
by industry commenters to be CBI is
already available from a number of
government and other legitimate
sources. We have little information on
whether states have withheld manifest
or aggregate data, as the State surveys
did not disclose any pattern of states
withholding data. We do know,
however, that California must withhold
information in summary reports that
links a customer and a transporter.5
5 Hazardous waste transporters that are
authorized by CA to use CA’s consolidated
manifesting procedures must submit quarterly
reports to the CA EPA Department of Toxic and
Substances Control (DTSC). The consolidated
manifesting procedures apply to non-RCRA/CA
hazardous waste or to RCRA hazardous waste that
is not subject to the federal manifest requirements.
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Second, we are aware that some state
programs have denied CBI treatment to
data contained in manifest records.6
Some states disclose manifest records
freely, and this has been the general
practice among those states for more
than 20 years. As far as EPA knows, free
disclosure has been the common
practice for dealing with data from
manifest records among some states,
and there have not been significant
objections raised by members of
industry to those states’ disclosure
practices. EPA is not persuaded that it
should reverse this long-standing policy
among those states by adopting a
Federal policy that conflicts with the
prevailing state laws and policies on
this issue. We seek comment on other
states’ CBI treatment of manifest records
and the data contained in them.
For these reasons, we believe that
individual manifest records and data
contained in them should not be subject
to CBI claims since they are not entitled
to protection as CBI in some states. This
policy will apply to electronic and
paper manifests, and to domestic and
transboundary shipment manifests.
While we intend to clarify in the final
rule that individual manifest records
would not be entitled to CBI protection,
we also are considering limiting access
to the preliminary/draft manifest data.
Access would only be limited while the
data are being collected and verified, as
manifest data are processed and
received by waste handlers, and
exceptions or discrepancies are being
resolved, in the system and before the
manifest information is complete.
Specifically, the preparation and
processing of a manifest is an iterative
process that begins when the generator
The CA Health and Safety Code § 25160(d)
prohibits the disclosure of the association between
any specific transporter and specific generator. The
list of generators served by a transporter is deemed
to be trade secret and confidential business
information for purposes of Section 25173 and
Section 66260.2 of Title 22 of the California Code
of Regulations.
6 In January of 2007, the MI state representative
on EPA’s E-Manifest Final Rule Work Group
disseminated a survey on behalf of ASTSWMO,
through the Hazardous Waste Program Operations
Task Force, to interested states in order to request
information about their state manifest requirements,
including the requirements for public access/CBI to
manifest records. Eight states responded on how
they currently treat or might treat manifest data as
CBI. Responses from the eight states are as follows:
One state (NY) denies CBI treatment to manifest
records; One state (OH) allows TSDFs to claim CBI
on their annual waste report; Four states (ID, OR,
SC, CT) do not give CBI treatment to manifest data
reported on quarterly or annual reports; and Two
states (FL, MI) indicate that they would not give
manifest data CBI treatment. In addition, three
states (MD, NJ, PA) that participated on the work
group, but were not included in the survey
indicated that their state would not treat manifest
data as CBI.
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fills out and signs the generator portion
of the manifest; continues as
transporters review and correct the
generator-supplied information, fill in
any additional transporter data fields,
and then sign to acknowledge receipt of
the shipment; and concludes when the
receiving facility enters facility data,
signs to acknowledge waste receipts,
rejections, or discrepancies, and then
verifies the final status of the shipment
to the generator (and to many
authorized states) by sending the
generator and states the final verified
copy.
EPA believes that it typically will take
up to 60 days from the start of a
shipment for all the iterative manifest
processing and verification steps to be
completed. As part of this process, the
designated facility must report waste
receipts to the generator of that waste
within 30 days of receipt of the waste.
40 CFR 264.71(a)(2)(iv). Any significant
discrepancies must be reported to the
EPA Regional Administrator or the
authorized state if the discrepancy is not
resolved between the generator and
designated facility within 15 days from
the designated facility’s receipt of the
waste. 40 CFR 264.71(b)(4) and
264.72(c). In addition, the existing
regulations provide that exceptions
must be reported by generators to EPA
or authorized states if 45 days have
passed since delivery of the hazardous
waste to the initial transporter, and the
generator still has not received a copy
of the final manifest signed by the
designated facility. 40 CFR 262.42.
Therefore, during the time that waste
shipments are en route to the receiving
facilities, and during the period of time
after delivery of the waste when
manifest exceptions and discrepancies
may be reported, we intend to limit
access to incomplete and unverified
manifest data to only the entities
involved with a shipment (and to
regulators and emergency responders).
These are the entities that have a need
to know about the manifest data being
entered on an electronic manifest, while
the shipment is en route, or while the
manifest data is subject to review and
correction—that is, during the time for
verifying and reporting waste receipts,
exceptions or discrepancies, and
resolving the exceptions or
discrepancies.
However, after this 60-day period has
passed, such that the electronic
manifests are considered complete and
final for regulatory purposes, EPA
intends to make all manifest records
available upon request in accordance
with the Federal Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552.
We emphasize that this suggested
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17:16 Feb 25, 2008
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limited restriction on access during the
manifest creation process is intended to
protect the integrity and security of the
manifest data during the period of time
that the electronic manifest is being
processed and verified by the waste
handlers that are involved with the
management of the waste shipment.
EPA requests comment on our
decision to categorically and
prospectively exclude manifests from
eligibility for CBI claims. In addition,
the Agency believes that the FOIA
exemption for personal privacy does not
exempt from production the names of
company employees or independent
contractors that appear in the manifests.
EPA requests public comment on this
position. The Agency also requests
comment on its proposed policy of
limiting access to incomplete and
unverified manifest information to the
waste handlers named on particular
manifests (as well as regulators and
emergency responders), and allowing
full disclosure of manifest information
that has been completed and verified by
the receiving facilities. As we discussed
above, EPA believes that the period of
limited access to preliminary manifest
data should extend no longer than 60
days after the start of the waste
shipment. However, we request
comment on whether 60 days is
appropriate, or whether commenters
believe that another period of time is
more appropriate.
2. Release of Aggregate Data and
Competitive Harm Concerns. EPA
understands that the waste management
industry may be concerned that the
aggregation of manifest records and data
contained in them in one national
electronic system may enable
competitors to obtain more immediate
and efficient access to their customer
information, thus potentially creating
competitive consequences not
experienced under the current paper
system.
Because EPA has not previously
collected manifest records
electronically, we have no quantifiable
evidence at this time to suggest that the
manifest data that would be stored in
EPA’s national system would somehow
create or cause competitive harm to
persons or companies that would
submit data to the e-Manifest system, if
that data were released in aggregated
form upon a FOIA request. Since the
individual manifest records would not
be eligible for CBI treatment for the
reasons discussed above, it is a novel
issue for EPA whether requests under
FOIA for data aggregated from multiple
manifests would require special
handling by EPA under the FOIA
PO 00000
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Fmt 4702
Sfmt 4702
10209
exemption for confidential business
information.
Therefore, EPA is seeking public
comment on how, if at all, the eManifest system should address any
future FOIA requests for aggregate
manifest data. First, EPA needs
information on how substantial the
harm would be to a company’s
competitive position (particularly since
we intend to defer the release of
electronic manifest data to the general
public for 60 days) if aggregate data
from multiple manifests could be
obtained from EPA under a FOIA
request. How would this situation differ
quantifiably from the current situation
where a FOIA request can be made for
multiple manifests and the requester
must then aggregate the relevant data in
each of these manifests for himself or
herself? How different would the
situation be from that which occurs now
with paper manifests given that a
member of the public may generally
obtain any number of paper manifests
from states under the states’ current
manifest collection and tracking
programs? Also, even if EPA could offer
additional protection to aggregate eManifest data, what would be the
benefit since requesters can instead
direct their requests for electronic
manifest records to the states? The states
will routinely receive electronic
manifest records from the e-Manifest
system in their capacity as RCRA
regulators. However, these states would
not be required to follow EPA’s
determinations under the exemption for
CBI of the Federal FOIA and could
instead choose or be required to release
all electronic manifest data as public
information under their state laws and
procedures. Given our uncertainty about
the adverse effects or competitive harm
to waste management businesses that
would submit manifests to the national
e-Manifest system, we seek comment on
whether the release of aggregated data
would adversely impact waste
management businesses. In particular,
we ask that the waste management
industry substantiate their concerns, if
any, that the aggregation of manifest
data and the subsequent disclosure of
that data would somehow release their
company’s confidential business
information and thus cause substantial
competitive harm to them. We also
request information on how the waste
management industry protects their
confidential business information
recorded on manifests in states that
currently make manifest data publicly
available.
If EPA were to determine that the
waste management industry concerns
for the disclosure of aggregate
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information are legitimate and that they
are not sufficiently addressed by the
approach described above in this
NODA, then we could develop another
approach to mitigate the ability to
efficiently create customer lists from
aggregated data. For instance, we could
design the e-Manifest system to provide
the aggregated data in a redacted form,
protecting either the identity of the
generator, transporter, or TSDF so that
anyone who requests aggregated data
could not generate customer business
information from it. We therefore
request comment on how EPA should
design and implement an approach to
protect the disclosure of aggregate data
of competitive value, if such an
approach were appropriate. For
example, what are the indicators of
aggregated requests (e.g., requests of 50
or more manifests involving a single
transporter or TSDF) that would justify
our handling aggregated data differently
from individual manifests for FOIA
disclosure purposes? What information
should be redacted from the data that
are released to mitigate any competitive
harm from the data disclosure? How can
this process be automated so that it can
be effectively implemented in an
electronic manifest system that must
address potentially millions of manifest
records annually, and their related FOIA
requests, without significant human
intervention?
jlentini on PROD1PC65 with PROPOSALS
III. Request for Comments
EPA requests comments on the policy
issues discussed in this notice regarding
our preferred approach that final copies
of paper manifest records be submitted
by designated facilities to EPA’s eManifest system operator for data
processing, and our categorical
determination that individual or
aggregate manifest data may not be
claimed as CBI. The Agency also
requests comment on various aspects of
our proposed policy of limiting access
to incomplete and unverified manifest
information to the waste handlers
named on particular manifests (as well
as regulators and emergency
responders).
EPA will consider the comments
received pursuant to this notice, along
with comments on the April 18, 2006
public notice, on the e-Manifest
proposal in the May 2001 proposed rule,
and the May 2004 Stakeholder meeting,
as it prepares a final rule on the eManifest system.
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Dated: February 19, 2008.
Susan Parker Bodine,
Assistant Administrator, Office of Solid Waste
and Emergency Response.
[FR Doc. E8–3615 Filed 2–25–08; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560–50–P
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND
HUMAN SERVICES
Office of Refugee Resettlement
45 CFR Part 404
RIN 0970–AC28
Limitation on Use of Funds and
Eligibility for Funds Made Available by
the Office of Refugee Resettlement,
Within the Administration for Children
and Families, of the Department of
Health and Human Services, To
Monitor and Combat Trafficking in
Persons
Office of Refugee Resettlement
(ORR), Administration for Children and
Families (ACF), U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS).
ACTION: Proposed rule.
AGENCY:
SUMMARY: This proposed rule would
implement two provisions of the
Trafficking Victims Protection Act
(TVPA) (22 U.S.C. Chapter 78), as
amended by the Trafficking Victims
Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA)
of 2003 (Pub. L. 108–193), that provide
limitations on the use of funds. The
provisions at Title 22 of the U.S.C.
7110(g) prohibit programs from using
trafficking funds to promote, support, or
advocate the legalization or practice of
prostitution. They make ineligible to
receive funds any organization that
promotes, supports, or advocates the
legalization or the practice of
prostitution if the organization operates
a program that targets victims of severe
forms of trafficking, unless the
organization provides assistance to
individuals solely after they are no
longer engaged in activities that resulted
from their being trafficked. This
proposed rule applies to funds that
Congress appropriates for the U.S.
Department of Health and Human
Services for anti-trafficking purposes
under Title 22 of the United States
Code.
Comment Date: HHS will
consider comments received on or
before April 28, 2008.
ADDRESSES: You may submit your
comments in writing to the Office of
Refugee Resettlement, Administration
for Children and Families, U.S.
Department of Health and Human
DATES:
PO 00000
Frm 00026
Fmt 4702
Sfmt 4702
Services, 370 L’Enfant Promenade, SW.,
8th Floor, Washington, DC 20447.
Comments will be available for public
inspection Monday through Friday, 8:30
a.m. to 5 p.m., at the Department’s
offices at the above address. You may
download a copy of this regulation at
www.regulations.gov, or you may
download a copy and transmit written
comments electronically via the Internet
at the following address: https://
www.regulations.acf.hhs.gov.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Vanessa Garza, Associate Director for
Trafficking Policy, Office of Refugee
Resettlement, Administration for
Children and Families, U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services, (202)
401–2334, or by e-mail at
vanessa.garza@acf.hhs.gov. Do not email comments on the Proposed Rule to
this address.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Statutory Authority
This proposed rule implements two
provisions concerning restrictions on
the use of funds that were added to the
TVPA by the TVPRA of 2003 and
codified at Title 22 of the U.S.C.
7110(g). These provisions: (1) Prohibit
any Federal funds appropriated under
the TVPA, Public Law 106–386, and the
TVPRA of 2003, or any amendments
thereto, from being used to promote,
support, or advocate the legalization or
the practice of prostitution (designated
the ‘‘Restriction on Programs’’ in the
statute); and (2) make ineligible to
receive Federal funds appropriated
under the TVPA or TVPRA, or any
amendments thereto, any organization
that promotes, supports, or advocates
the legalization or the practice of
prostitution if the organization operates
a program that targets victims of severe
forms of trafficking, unless the
organization provides assistance to
individuals solely after they are no
longer engaged in the activities that
resulted from such victims being
trafficked (designated the ‘‘Restriction
on Organizations’’ in the statute).
II. Background
This regulation implements these
statutory provisions as part of the U.S.
Government’s vigorous and
comprehensive campaign to eliminate
trafficking in persons at home and
around the world. Congress and the
Executive Branch are especially
concerned about the significant role
sexual exploitation plays in fueling
trafficking in persons. The U.S.
Government is opposed to prostitution
and related activities, which are
inherently harmful and dehumanizing,
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Agencies
[Federal Register Volume 73, Number 38 (Tuesday, February 26, 2008)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 10204-10210]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E8-3615]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
40 CFR Parts 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265, and 271
[EPA-HQ-RCRA-2001-0032; FRL-8534-1]
RIN 2050-AG20
Hazardous Waste Management System; Modification of the Hazardous
Waste Manifest System
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Notice of data availability and request for comment.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: This notice announces the availability of additional
information on the electronic manifest (e-Manifest) project.
Specifically, EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response
(OSWER) has made significant progress on the e-Manifest project since
the publication of the April 18, 2006 public notice, which announced
and requested comment on our intention to develop a centralized web-
based information technology (IT) system that would be hosted on EPA's
IT architecture. However, a few issues raised by commenters in response
to the April 2006 public notice require further analysis on our part,
as we make decisions concerning the e-Manifest system.
We received strong support in response to the April 2006 public
notice to establish a national web-based system funded through user-
fees. In addition, commenters generally supported our position that use
of e-Manifests should be at the election of the users rather than
mandatory. However, some commenters expressed concern that an optional
system would create dual paper and electronic systems. Furthermore,
industry and state comments in response to our position to allow
confidential business information (CBI) claims for e-Manifests
differed. Therefore, as explained in this notice, we are soliciting
additional comment on EPA's position on these two issues. We remain
committed to finalizing a federal regulation, once the necessary
legislation is enacted, that will authorize the regulated community to
use electronic manifests as the legal equivalent of paper manifests,
and will consider the comments received on this notice, as well as
other comments received from previous actions, before we make a final
decision.
DATES: Comments must be received on or before April 11, 2008.
ADDRESSES: Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-
RCRA-2001-0032 by one of the following methods:
www.regulations.gov: Follow the on-line instructions for
submitting comments.
E-mail: Comments may be sent by electronic mail to: rcra-
docket@epa.gov, Attention Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-RCRA-2001-0032.
Fax: Comments may be faxed to 202-566-0272, Attention
Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-RCRA-2001-0032.
Mail: Comments may be sent to Environmental Protection
Agency, EPA Docket Center (EPA/DC), Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act (RCRA) Docket, 5305T, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Washington, DC
20460, Attention Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-
[[Page 10205]]
RCRA-2001-0032. Please include a total of two copies.
Hand Delivery: Comments may be hand-delivered to the
Public Reading Room, EPA West Building, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution
Avenue, NW., Washington, DC, Attention Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-RCRA-2001-
0032. Such deliveries are only accepted during the Docket's normal
hours of operation, and special arrangements should be made for
deliveries of boxed information. Please include a total of two copies.
Instructions: Direct your comments to Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-RCRA-
2001-0032. EPA's policy is that all comments received will be included
in the public docket without change and may be made available online at
www.regulations.gov, including any personal information provided,
unless the comment includes information claimed to be Confidential
Business Information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is
restricted by statute. Do not submit information that you consider to
be CBI or otherwise protected through www.regulations.gov or e-mail.
The www.regulations.gov Web site is an ``anonymous access'' system,
which means EPA will not know your identity or contact information
unless you provide it in the body of your comment. If you send an e-
mail comment directly to EPA without going through www.regulations.gov,
your e-mail address will be captured automatically and included as part
of the comment that is placed in the public docket and made available
on the Internet. If you submit an electronic comment, EPA recommends
that you include your name and other contact information in the body of
your comment and with any disk or CD-ROM you submit. If EPA cannot read
your comment due to technical difficulties and cannot contact you for
clarification, EPA may not be able to consider your comment. Electronic
files should avoid the use of special characters, any form of
encryption, and be free of any defects or viruses. For additional
information about EPA's public docket, visit the EPA Docket Center
homepage at https://www.epa.gov/epahome/dockets.htm.
Docket: All documents in the docket are listed in the
www.regulations.gov index. Although listed in the index, some
information is not publicly available, e.g., CBI or other information
whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such
as copyrighted material, will be publicly available only in hard copy.
Publicly available docket materials are available either electronically
in www.regulations.gov or in hard copy at the RCRA Docket, EPA/DC, EPA
West, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution Ave., NW., Washington, DC. The
Public Reading Room is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through
Friday, excluding legal holidays. The telephone number for the Public
Reading Room is (202) 566-1744, and the telephone number for the RCRA
Docket is 202-566-0270. Copies cost $0.15/page.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For further information regarding
specific aspects of this document, contact Richard LaShier, Office of
Solid Waste, (703) 308-8796, lashier.rich@epa.gov, or Bryan Groce,
Office of Solid Waste, (703) 308-8750, groce.bryan@epa.gov. Mail
inquiries may be directed to the Office of Solid Waste (OSW), (5304W),
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20460.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. General Information
A. Does This Rule Apply to Me?
This rule could affect up to 223,000 entities in upwards of 600
industries involved in shipping approximately 12 million tons of RCRA
hazardous wastes annually, using 5.0 million EPA Uniform Hazardous
Waste Manifests (EPA Form 8700-22 and continuation sheets EPA Form
8700-22A). These entities consist of about 15,000 RCRA large quantity
generator (LQG) waste shippers, plus about 146,000 RCRA small quantity
generator (SQG) waste shippers, plus about 350 waste transporters, plus
about 1,500 waste receiving treatment, storage, disposal facilities
(TSDFs), plus 60,000 conditionally-exempt small quantity generators
(CESQGs),\1\ plus 23 state governments known to collect paper manifests
as of 2004.\2\ If you have any questions regarding the applicability of
this rule to a particular entity, consult the people listed under FOR
FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT.
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\1\ CESQGs are exempt from Federal RCRA hazardous waste
manifesting regulations, but at least one state (CA) requires RCRA
CESQGs to use the EPA manifest for hazardous waste shipments. We
have included state-regulated CESQGs in the count of possible
affected entities for this notice in order to provide a complete
economic impact estimate, not just a narrower Federal waste impact
estimate, because the operational scope of our planned e-manifest
system will encompass manifest processing for state-regulated waste
shipments, not just Federal-regulated hazardous waste shipments.
\2\ As surveyed in 2004 with 49 states providing responses, 23
state governments currently collect completed paper manifests
(source: ``Analysis of Site Identification Questionnaire Collected
in June and July of 2004'', August 23, 2004, compiled by Paula
Canter, Ohio EPA Division of Hazardous Waste Management, for the
Association of State & Territorial Solid Waste Management
Officials). The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality
surveyed state government agencies on this question in January 2007,
but only received 29 responses, so the older but more comprehensive
2004 survey is cited here. EPA estimates that these 23 states
account for 0.74 million (35%) of the 2.14 million Federally-
regulated hazardous waste paper manifests per year, and 0.89 million
(32%) of the 2.82 million state-regulated waste manifests collected
per year, representing a total 1.63 million (33%) of the 4.96
million total paper manifests completed per year (based on
extrapolation from the 2005 Federal hazardous waste shipment tonnage
reported in EPA's 2005 RCRA Hazardous Waste Biennial Report).
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B. What Should I Consider as I Prepare My Comments for EPA?
1. Submitting CBI. Do not submit CBI information to EPA through
www.regulations.gov or e-mail. Clearly mark the part or all of the
information that you claim to be CBI. For CBI information in a disk or
CD-ROM that you mail to EPA, mark the outside of the disk or CD-ROM as
CBI and then identify electronically within the disk or CD-ROM the
specific information that is claimed as CBI. In addition to one
complete version of the comment that includes information claimed as
CBI, a copy of the comment that does not contain the information
claimed as CBI must be submitted for inclusion in the public docket.
Information so marked will not be disclosed except in accordance with
the procedures set forth in 40 CFR Part 2.
2. Tips for Preparing Your Comments. When submitting comments,
remember to:
Identify the rulemaking by docket number and other
identifying information (subject heading, Federal Register date and
page number).
Follow directions--The agency may ask you to respond to
specific questions or organize comments by referencing a Code of
Federal Regulations (CFR) part or section number.
Explain why you agree or disagree; suggest alternatives
and substitute language for your requested changes.
Describe any assumptions and provide any technical
information and/or data that you used.
If you estimate potential costs or burdens, explain how
you arrived at your estimate in sufficient detail to allow for it to be
reproduced.
Provide specific examples to illustrate your concerns, and
suggest alternatives.
Explain your views as clearly as possible.
Make sure to submit your comments by the comment period
deadline identified.
The contents of this notice are listed in the following outline:
I. Background of E-Manifest System
II. Final Rulemaking Efforts
A. Submission requirements to system for paper manifest copies
[[Page 10206]]
B. Public access to electronic manifests and CBI claims for
manifest data
III. Request for Comments
I. Background of E-Manifest System
On May 22, 2001, EPA published a notice of proposed rulemaking
(NPRM) that proposed several major revisions to the hazardous waste
manifest system, including proposed revisions aimed at adopting an
electronic manifesting approach that would allow waste shipments to be
tracked electronically, thereby mitigating the burdens and
inefficiencies associated with the use of paper manifest forms (66 FR
28240).
Although comments generally supported an electronic tracking
scheme, several significant issues were raised that necessitated
further analysis and stakeholder outreach prior to adopting a final e-
Manifest regulation. As a result, EPA held a two-day public meeting on
May 19-20, 2004, to discuss and obtain public input on how best to
proceed with selecting and implementing the future direction of the e-
Manifest. We heard from both the hazardous waste management industry
and state government attendees at the public meeting that there is a
strong consensus (a) in favor of establishing a nationally centralized
e-Manifest system that would consistently and securely generate and
process electronic manifests, and (b) that system users would be
willing to pay reasonable service fees to fund the development and
annual operation of the system. The full proceedings for the May 2004
public meeting have been posted on our EPA Web site at https://
www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/gener/manifest/e-man.htm.
On April 18, 2006, we published a Notice of Data Availability
(NODA) to request comment on our preferred approach for electronically
completing and transmitting manifests through a national, centralized
e-Manifest system that would be established and maintained through
user-fees. Comments strongly supported EPA's suggested approach, but
also raised a few issues about which we are seeking further comment.
Specifically, waste management industry commenters questioned whether
the resulting dual paper and centralized e-Manifest system would
generate complexity and burden that would frustrate the transition to
electronic manifests and thus, undermine the paperwork burden cost
savings goal for the e-Manifest. State agency comments indicated that
their support for electronic manifesting was contingent upon there
being a means to ensure that a complete national set of manifest data
would be established, including data from both electronic manifests and
any remaining paper manifests each year. According to these commenters,
a centralized system that did not also contain the data from paper
manifests would not present a complete picture of all RCRA and state
regulated hazardous wastes. Consequently, such a system could result in
some states having to maintain duplicative processes and systems to
collect and track the data from the remaining paper forms. Thus, both
industry and state commenters urged EPA to develop the final rule so as
to lessen the effects of dual paper and electronic manifest systems.
The April 2006 notice also raised the issue of potential claims of
CBI regarding the manifest data. Some state government commenters
generally did not support CBI claims for manifest data and deemed
manifests to be public records. Further, these commenters also
indicated that their states have state legislation or policies which
bar CBI claims with respect to manifests. On the other hand, comments
from the waste management industry supported claiming manifest data as
CBI. These commenters were especially interested in protecting customer
information from being mined from electronic manifests by competitors.
The industry members are concerned that the availability of this
information electronically will enable competitors to obtain more
immediate and efficient access to their customer information. Public
access to paper manifests is currently limited by a number of factors:
(a) EPA does not collect completed paper manifests, except for export
and import manifests from transboundary waste shipments, so public
access requests to the vast majority of completed paper manifests must
be made to state governments, (b) as of 2004, only 23 state governments
collect completed paper manifests representing only about one-third of
the 5.0 million national manifests annually; and (c) although EPA's
RCRA Hazardous Waste Biennial Report provides national hazardous waste
shipment and waste receipt data which reveals EPA ID numbers, company
names and addresses for waste shippers and waste receivers, the lag-
time for public access to the Biennial Report data is at least one year
\3\ after any given data reporting year.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ EPA's published schedule for data reporting and report
implementation milestones for the 2007 RCRA Hazardous Waste Biennial
Report, is for completion of the 2007 data year report by December
2008, which represents exactly a one-year lag-time between public
access (i.e., data availability over the internet) and the data year
(2007); the 2007 Biennial Report schedule is published at https://
www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/data/biennialreport/index.htm.
However, the December 2008 scheduled completion of the 2007 Biennial
Report database represents a three-year lag period relative to the
prior biennial data year 2005.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
II. Final Rulemaking Efforts
We are currently developing the final rule that will authorize the
use of electronic manifests, and will address scope and other policy
issues. However, the promulgation of this rule is contingent upon the
enactment of legislation providing EPA the authority to collect user-
fees to fund the development and operation of the system. Nevertheless,
we continue to move forward with the rulemaking in anticipation of
enactment of the needed legislation.
Based on the comments received in response to the April 2006 public
notice regarding the merits of an optional electronic manifest approach
and the CBI issue, we are announcing and requesting comment on our
preferred approaches for addressing submissions of paper-based
manifests to the electronic manifest system and for addressing CBI
claims for manifest data. These approaches are discussed below.
A. Submission Requirements to System for Paper Manifest Copies
EPA agrees with waste management industry and state government
commenters' concern that it would not be efficient to have an
electronic manifest system collecting data only from electronic
manifests, while another paper-based system addresses the data only
from paper manifests. Therefore, we believe that the system being
designed should be a unified system for processing and distributing
data from all manifests, including data from paper manifests. We
considered several options aimed at simplifying the process for
collecting paper forms and at ensuring that the data collected from
both electronic manifests and paper forms could be efficiently
processed so that a comprehensive set of manifest data would be
available to users and regulators. We have identified a preferred
approach that we believe provides the most efficient solution to the
dual paper/electronic systems problem.
Under our preferred approach, the final destination facility (i.e.,
designated final TSDF), for each hazardous waste shipment involving a
paper manifest, would be required to submit the top copy (i.e., Page 1
of the 6-page set) of the paper manifest form to the e-Manifest system
operator within 30 days of receipt of the waste shipment. While the
[[Page 10207]]
e-Manifest system is not yet designed, we envision that the designated
facility could mail a copy to the e-Manifest system operator or could
transmit an image file to the EPA system so that the e-Manifest system
operator could key in the data from the paper copies or image files to
the data system. Alternatively, the designated facility could submit
both the image file and a file presenting the manifest data to the
system in image file and data file formats acceptable to the e-Manifest
system operator and supported by the Central Data Exchange (CDX). For
paper copies mailed to the system by designated facilities, the e-
Manifest system operator would create or obtain an image file of each
such manifest, and store it on the system for retrieval by state or
federal regulators. The e-Manifest system operator also would key in,
electronically scan using an optical character recognition (OCR)
device, or otherwise transfer the federal- and state-regulated waste
data from these paper copies to the e-Manifest system. By having all
manifest data in electronic form, EPA could extract any data regarding
RCRA hazardous wastes for inclusion in its data systems, while the
states could pull off data from the system concerning both federally
regulated RCRA and state-regulated wastes for processing in the states'
own tracking systems.
We envision that designated facilities would be required to pay a
fee to the system operator for processing the data from these final
copies of the paper forms, and the fee would presumably vary with the
type of submission (mailed copy, image file, or image plus data file),
as these submission types would likely present a different level of
effort insofar as the processing steps required to enter the form data
into the system. It is likely that the fee paid by the designated
facility would be passed on to the generator (i.e., the designated
facility's customer). We estimate that the paperwork burden cost to
TSDFs for submitting a copy of the final manifest could be $1.95 per
paper manifest, for an incremental (i.e., over current baseline) annual
cost to TSDFs of between $1.6 million and $6.5 million per year. In
addition, we estimate the possible fee that EPA's e-Manifest system
operator (or other EPA-designated e-Manifest affiliate) might charge
TSDFs for receiving paper manifests and for transferring (i.e., imaging
and keypunching) paper manifest data to the e-Manifest system, could be
between $0.25 to $0.75 per paper manifest, for an incremental (i.e.,
over current baseline) annual cost to TSDFs of between $0.2 million and
$2.9 million. On a combined basis, we estimate these two components of
paper manifest processing incremental costs to TSDFs could total
between $1.8 million and $9.4 million annually, representing an average
incremental cost to TSDFs of $2.20 to $2.70 per paper manifest. We
invite public comment on our approach and the cost estimates.
We believe such an approach simplifies manifest copy submissions
for the regulated TSDFs, who in the future would only need to provide
designated facility copies to one location--the national centralized e-
Manifest system--rather than supply copies to the numerous state
agencies that now collect a copy of the final manifest. Further, it
focuses the federal collection effort on a copy of the final paper
manifest forms from the designated facilities, which provide the best
accounting of the quantities and types of hazardous wastes that were
actually received for management. We believe that providing a means to
collect a complete set of hazardous waste receipts data from RCRA TSDFs
(the merged set of paper and electronic manifest data), also may in the
future provide EPA with the means to replace biennial reporting by
TSDFs of waste receipts data with a much simpler approach that relies
upon the designated facility data reported to the e-Manifest system.\4\
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\4\ EPA intends to publish a notice and seek comment on
potential changes to the Hazardous Waste Report (i.e., Biennial
Report) before any changes are made.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We also believe that there are a number of benefits of this
approach to state programs. As states are connected to the e-Manifest
system through EPA's National Environmental Information Exchange
Network, they would be able to pull off the image files and the data
keyed from paper manifests from this central processing service, just
as they would be able to obtain the data and presentations of
electronic manifests from the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) schemas
and stylesheets transmitted on the e-Manifest system. This national
data system also presents a much more efficient approach that can
eliminate the need for discrete state systems designed to capture
manifest data.
In addition, as the e-Manifest system operator would be able to
assess appropriate fees for the paper processing and data entry
activities necessary to process the data from paper forms and enter
them into the e-Manifest system, the actual costs of providing these
services would be recovered by the system operator from the designated
facility. Since we expect that electronic manifests will be much more
efficient to process than paper forms, the differential fees that are
established for paper and electronic manifest processing likely would
operate as an additional incentive for the transition to electronic
manifests.
While we intend to clarify in the final rule that the use of the
electronic manifest format would be optional for members of the
regulated community, our preferred approach to collect a copy of the
final paper manifest forms from designated facilities and to process
the data from these paper forms centrally means that these designated
facilities will be required to interact with the e-Manifest system
(i.e., submitting data either electronically or by mail and paying
established fees). Thus, this NODA confirms our intention to have a
single national hazardous waste database.
Facilities that elect to use the electronic manifest format would
submit their manifest information electronically as a natural
consequence of participating in the e-Manifest system. The e-Manifest
system would be designed for the purpose of distributing electronic
manifest data among the users and regulatory agencies, while the
electronic manifest information is being obtained, processed, and
transmitted electronically via the e-Manifest system. On the other
hand, those facilities and hazardous waste handlers that choose to use
the paper manifest forms or are presented with paper forms rather than
electronic manifest formats, would need to process the paper manifest
forms physically in the conventional manner that has been the norm
since the uniform hazardous waste manifest form was introduced in 1984.
However, in place of sending a copy of the final manifest directly to
the destination state, the final rule would require the designated
facility to send Copy 1 of the paper manifest form to EPA's e-Manifest
system operator. Thus, the designated facilities would be required to
submit a copy of the final manifest to the e-Manifest system, either in
the supported electronic format or as a paper copy, and pay a fee for
this service. In other words, the use of the electronic manifest format
would be voluntary under the final rule, although the submission of
either a completed paper or electronic manifest to the EPA system
operator and payment of an associated fee in every case would be
required of designated facilities. Once this requirement is effective,
and all copies of the final manifest (electronic or paper) from
designated facilities are being submitted directly to EPA's e-Manifest
system
[[Page 10208]]
operator, the states would be able to obtain their copies of the final
manifest and data from the e-Manifest system through their computer
systems on the National Environmental Information Exchange Network. It
is EPA's intent that the submission of the final paper manifest copy to
the e-Manifest system would replace the requirement to supply paper
manifests directly to the states. Since the states would have nodes in
place on the Exchange Network for receiving manifest copies from the
system, it would no longer be necessary for the states to require the
direct submission of paper copies to the states. Thus, the paper copy
submission requirement could replace the requirement for facilities to
submit copies of the final manifest to the states. Note that the
facilities that receive paper manifests will still need to retain a
paper manifest copy among their own facility records for the 3-year
record retention period in accordance with current requirements. We
request comment on our recommendation to collect a copy of the final
electronic and paper manifest forms from designated facilities and to
process the data from these forms centrally.
B. Public Access to Electronic Manifests and CBI Claims for Manifest
Data
1. Individual Manifest Records and Commercial Confidentiality
Concerns. With the exception of export and import manifests from
transboundary waste shipments, EPA previously has not generally
collected hazardous waste manifests. While data from export or import
manifests have been claimed as CBI in the past, since the adoption of
the new hazardous waste manifest form (EPA Form 8700-22) and
continuation sheet (EPA Form 8700-22A) (70 FR 10776 (March 4, 2005); 71
FR 19842, 19847 (April 18, 2006)), our records indicate that no CBI
claims have been made at this time regarding any of the data contained
in these manifests. Thus, until now, the Agency has not had a need to
determine any national policy with respect to the eligibility of
manifest data for CBI claims. Based on the information now available to
EPA on this question, EPA has concluded that information contained in
individual hazardous waste manifest records, including any individual
electronic manifests that may be submitted and collected electronically
through the e-Manifest system, is essentially public information and
therefore is not eligible under federal law for treatment as CBI. The
effect of this decision is that EPA would be making a categorical
determination that it will not accept any CBI claims that might be
asserted in the future in connection with processing, using, or
retaining individual paper or electronic manifests. This decision, we
believe, should apply prospectively from the effective date of the e-
Manifest final rule because the Agency has not previously announced
this position and thus it would be unfair or inappropriate for the
Agency to release such information, particularly for those companies
that have previously made such a claim. Thus, it would not impact any
CBI claims or any determinations made in the past by EPA in resolving
manifest-related CBI claims. Our rationale is explained in the
following paragraphs.
First, we believe that any CBI claim that might be asserted with
respect to individual manifest records would be extremely difficult to
sustain under the substantive CBI criteria. 40 CFR Part 2, Subpart B,
and 40 CFR 260.2. As manifests are shared with several commercial
entities while they are being processed and used, a business concerned
with protecting its commercial information would find it exceedingly
difficult to protect its individual manifest records from disclosure by
all the other persons who come into contact with its manifests. For
example, a business desiring to protect commercial information in the
manifest context would need to enter into and enforce non-disclosure
agreements or similar legal mechanisms with all its customers and other
third parties and affected interests who might also be named as waste
handlers on its manifests or who otherwise might be expected to come
into contact with its manifests. Moreover, as many states now require
the submission of generator and/or TSDF copies of manifests, and the
data from these manifests are often made publicly available or reported
in federal and state information systems, it seems apparent to EPA that
much of the information that might be claimed now by industry
commenters to be CBI is already available from a number of government
and other legitimate sources. We have little information on whether
states have withheld manifest or aggregate data, as the State surveys
did not disclose any pattern of states withholding data. We do know,
however, that California must withhold information in summary reports
that links a customer and a transporter.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Hazardous waste transporters that are authorized by CA to
use CA's consolidated manifesting procedures must submit quarterly
reports to the CA EPA Department of Toxic and Substances Control
(DTSC). The consolidated manifesting procedures apply to non-RCRA/CA
hazardous waste or to RCRA hazardous waste that is not subject to
the federal manifest requirements. The CA Health and Safety Code
Sec. 25160(d) prohibits the disclosure of the association between
any specific transporter and specific generator. The list of
generators served by a transporter is deemed to be trade secret and
confidential business information for purposes of Section 25173 and
Section 66260.2 of Title 22 of the California Code of Regulations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Second, we are aware that some state programs have denied CBI
treatment to data contained in manifest records.\6\ Some states
disclose manifest records freely, and this has been the general
practice among those states for more than 20 years. As far as EPA
knows, free disclosure has been the common practice for dealing with
data from manifest records among some states, and there have not been
significant objections raised by members of industry to those states'
disclosure practices. EPA is not persuaded that it should reverse this
long-standing policy among those states by adopting a Federal policy
that conflicts with the prevailing state laws and policies on this
issue. We seek comment on other states' CBI treatment of manifest
records and the data contained in them.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ In January of 2007, the MI state representative on EPA's E-
Manifest Final Rule Work Group disseminated a survey on behalf of
ASTSWMO, through the Hazardous Waste Program Operations Task Force,
to interested states in order to request information about their
state manifest requirements, including the requirements for public
access/CBI to manifest records. Eight states responded on how they
currently treat or might treat manifest data as CBI. Responses from
the eight states are as follows: One state (NY) denies CBI treatment
to manifest records; One state (OH) allows TSDFs to claim CBI on
their annual waste report; Four states (ID, OR, SC, CT) do not give
CBI treatment to manifest data reported on quarterly or annual
reports; and Two states (FL, MI) indicate that they would not give
manifest data CBI treatment. In addition, three states (MD, NJ, PA)
that participated on the work group, but were not included in the
survey indicated that their state would not treat manifest data as
CBI.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
For these reasons, we believe that individual manifest records and
data contained in them should not be subject to CBI claims since they
are not entitled to protection as CBI in some states. This policy will
apply to electronic and paper manifests, and to domestic and
transboundary shipment manifests. While we intend to clarify in the
final rule that individual manifest records would not be entitled to
CBI protection, we also are considering limiting access to the
preliminary/draft manifest data. Access would only be limited while the
data are being collected and verified, as manifest data are processed
and received by waste handlers, and exceptions or discrepancies are
being resolved, in the system and before the manifest information is
complete.
Specifically, the preparation and processing of a manifest is an
iterative process that begins when the generator
[[Page 10209]]
fills out and signs the generator portion of the manifest; continues as
transporters review and correct the generator-supplied information,
fill in any additional transporter data fields, and then sign to
acknowledge receipt of the shipment; and concludes when the receiving
facility enters facility data, signs to acknowledge waste receipts,
rejections, or discrepancies, and then verifies the final status of the
shipment to the generator (and to many authorized states) by sending
the generator and states the final verified copy.
EPA believes that it typically will take up to 60 days from the
start of a shipment for all the iterative manifest processing and
verification steps to be completed. As part of this process, the
designated facility must report waste receipts to the generator of that
waste within 30 days of receipt of the waste. 40 CFR 264.71(a)(2)(iv).
Any significant discrepancies must be reported to the EPA Regional
Administrator or the authorized state if the discrepancy is not
resolved between the generator and designated facility within 15 days
from the designated facility's receipt of the waste. 40 CFR
264.71(b)(4) and 264.72(c). In addition, the existing regulations
provide that exceptions must be reported by generators to EPA or
authorized states if 45 days have passed since delivery of the
hazardous waste to the initial transporter, and the generator still has
not received a copy of the final manifest signed by the designated
facility. 40 CFR 262.42.
Therefore, during the time that waste shipments are en route to the
receiving facilities, and during the period of time after delivery of
the waste when manifest exceptions and discrepancies may be reported,
we intend to limit access to incomplete and unverified manifest data to
only the entities involved with a shipment (and to regulators and
emergency responders). These are the entities that have a need to know
about the manifest data being entered on an electronic manifest, while
the shipment is en route, or while the manifest data is subject to
review and correction--that is, during the time for verifying and
reporting waste receipts, exceptions or discrepancies, and resolving
the exceptions or discrepancies.
However, after this 60-day period has passed, such that the
electronic manifests are considered complete and final for regulatory
purposes, EPA intends to make all manifest records available upon
request in accordance with the Federal Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552. We emphasize that this suggested limited
restriction on access during the manifest creation process is intended
to protect the integrity and security of the manifest data during the
period of time that the electronic manifest is being processed and
verified by the waste handlers that are involved with the management of
the waste shipment.
EPA requests comment on our decision to categorically and
prospectively exclude manifests from eligibility for CBI claims. In
addition, the Agency believes that the FOIA exemption for personal
privacy does not exempt from production the names of company employees
or independent contractors that appear in the manifests. EPA requests
public comment on this position. The Agency also requests comment on
its proposed policy of limiting access to incomplete and unverified
manifest information to the waste handlers named on particular
manifests (as well as regulators and emergency responders), and
allowing full disclosure of manifest information that has been
completed and verified by the receiving facilities. As we discussed
above, EPA believes that the period of limited access to preliminary
manifest data should extend no longer than 60 days after the start of
the waste shipment. However, we request comment on whether 60 days is
appropriate, or whether commenters believe that another period of time
is more appropriate.
2. Release of Aggregate Data and Competitive Harm Concerns. EPA
understands that the waste management industry may be concerned that
the aggregation of manifest records and data contained in them in one
national electronic system may enable competitors to obtain more
immediate and efficient access to their customer information, thus
potentially creating competitive consequences not experienced under the
current paper system.
Because EPA has not previously collected manifest records
electronically, we have no quantifiable evidence at this time to
suggest that the manifest data that would be stored in EPA's national
system would somehow create or cause competitive harm to persons or
companies that would submit data to the e-Manifest system, if that data
were released in aggregated form upon a FOIA request. Since the
individual manifest records would not be eligible for CBI treatment for
the reasons discussed above, it is a novel issue for EPA whether
requests under FOIA for data aggregated from multiple manifests would
require special handling by EPA under the FOIA exemption for
confidential business information.
Therefore, EPA is seeking public comment on how, if at all, the e-
Manifest system should address any future FOIA requests for aggregate
manifest data. First, EPA needs information on how substantial the harm
would be to a company's competitive position (particularly since we
intend to defer the release of electronic manifest data to the general
public for 60 days) if aggregate data from multiple manifests could be
obtained from EPA under a FOIA request. How would this situation differ
quantifiably from the current situation where a FOIA request can be
made for multiple manifests and the requester must then aggregate the
relevant data in each of these manifests for himself or herself? How
different would the situation be from that which occurs now with paper
manifests given that a member of the public may generally obtain any
number of paper manifests from states under the states' current
manifest collection and tracking programs? Also, even if EPA could
offer additional protection to aggregate e-Manifest data, what would be
the benefit since requesters can instead direct their requests for
electronic manifest records to the states? The states will routinely
receive electronic manifest records from the e-Manifest system in their
capacity as RCRA regulators. However, these states would not be
required to follow EPA's determinations under the exemption for CBI of
the Federal FOIA and could instead choose or be required to release all
electronic manifest data as public information under their state laws
and procedures. Given our uncertainty about the adverse effects or
competitive harm to waste management businesses that would submit
manifests to the national e-Manifest system, we seek comment on whether
the release of aggregated data would adversely impact waste management
businesses. In particular, we ask that the waste management industry
substantiate their concerns, if any, that the aggregation of manifest
data and the subsequent disclosure of that data would somehow release
their company's confidential business information and thus cause
substantial competitive harm to them. We also request information on
how the waste management industry protects their confidential business
information recorded on manifests in states that currently make
manifest data publicly available.
If EPA were to determine that the waste management industry
concerns for the disclosure of aggregate
[[Page 10210]]
information are legitimate and that they are not sufficiently addressed
by the approach described above in this NODA, then we could develop
another approach to mitigate the ability to efficiently create customer
lists from aggregated data. For instance, we could design the e-
Manifest system to provide the aggregated data in a redacted form,
protecting either the identity of the generator, transporter, or TSDF
so that anyone who requests aggregated data could not generate customer
business information from it. We therefore request comment on how EPA
should design and implement an approach to protect the disclosure of
aggregate data of competitive value, if such an approach were
appropriate. For example, what are the indicators of aggregated
requests (e.g., requests of 50 or more manifests involving a single
transporter or TSDF) that would justify our handling aggregated data
differently from individual manifests for FOIA disclosure purposes?
What information should be redacted from the data that are released to
mitigate any competitive harm from the data disclosure? How can this
process be automated so that it can be effectively implemented in an
electronic manifest system that must address potentially millions of
manifest records annually, and their related FOIA requests, without
significant human intervention?
III. Request for Comments
EPA requests comments on the policy issues discussed in this notice
regarding our preferred approach that final copies of paper manifest
records be submitted by designated facilities to EPA's e-Manifest
system operator for data processing, and our categorical determination
that individual or aggregate manifest data may not be claimed as CBI.
The Agency also requests comment on various aspects of our proposed
policy of limiting access to incomplete and unverified manifest
information to the waste handlers named on particular manifests (as
well as regulators and emergency responders).
EPA will consider the comments received pursuant to this notice,
along with comments on the April 18, 2006 public notice, on the e-
Manifest proposal in the May 2001 proposed rule, and the May 2004
Stakeholder meeting, as it prepares a final rule on the e-Manifest
system.
Dated: February 19, 2008.
Susan Parker Bodine,
Assistant Administrator, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response.
[FR Doc. E8-3615 Filed 2-25-08; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-P