Environmental Protection Agency July 13, 2005 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

Notice is hereby given in accordance with the provision of Section 1413 of the Safe Drinking Water Act as amended, and the National Primary Drinking Water Implementation Regulations that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is revising its approved Public Water System Supervision Program. Pennsylvania has adopted the Long Term 1 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule to improve control of microbial pathogens in drinking water, including specifically the protozoan Cryptosporidium, and the Filter Backwash Recycling Rule to require water systems to institute changes to return recycle flows of a plant's treatment process that may compromise pathogen treatment. EPA has determined that these revisions are no less stringent than the corresponding Federal regulations except for one minor omission to the Commonwealth's regulations. The item concerns Tier 3 public notification for reporting violations. This omission will be addressed through a future rulemaking. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection committed to complete this rulemaking in a letter of intent from the Chief of the Division of Drinking Water Management dated March 29, 2005. This letter includes the draft content of the regulatory change and a schedule, with milestones, for completing this revision. Therefore, EPA is taking action to tentatively approve these program revisions. All interested parties are invited to submit written comments on this determination and may request a public hearing.

In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.), this document announces that EPA is planning to submit a proposed Information Collection Request (ICR) to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This is a request for a new collection. Before submitting the ICR to OMB for review and approval, EPA is soliciting comments on specific aspects of the proposed information collection as described below.

This notice announces the availability of EPA's human health and environmental fate and effects risk assessments and related documents for the chlorinated triazine pesticide simazine, and opens a public comment period on these documents. The public is encouraged to suggest risk management ideas or proposals to address the risks identified. EPA is developing an Interim Reregistration Eligibility Decision (IRED) for simazine through a modified, 4-Phase public participation process that the Agency uses to involve the public in developing pesticide reregistration and tolerance reassessment decisions. Through these programs, EPA is ensuring that all pesticides meet current health and safety standards.

The Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) of 1996 amended the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) to require periodic review of pesticide registrations to ensure that over time they continue to meet statutory standards for registration. FIFRA section 3(g) specifies that EPA establish procedural regulations for conducting registration review and the goal of the regulations shall be Agency review of pesticide registrations on a 15-year cycle. This proposal describes the Agency's proposed approach to the registration review program. The proposed regulation is intended to ensure continued review of pesticides using procedures that provide for public participation and transparency in an efficient manner.

This regulation establishes tolerances for residues of spirodiclofen (3-(2,4-dichlorophenyl)-2-oxo-1-oxaspiro[4.5]dec-3-en-4- yl 2,2-dimethylbutanoate) in or on grape; grape, raisin; grape, juice; fruit, citrus, crop group 10; citrus, oil; citrus, juice; fruit, pome, crop group 11; apple, wet pomace; fruit, stone, crop group 12; nut, tree, crop group 14; almond, hulls; and pistachio; and for residues of spirodiclofen and its free enol metabolite (3-(2,4-dichlorophenyl)-4- hydroxy-1-oxaspiro[4,5]dec-3-en-2-one) in or on cattle, fat; cattle, meat byproducts; cattle, meat; goat, fat; goat, meat byproducts; goat, meat; sheep, fat; sheep, meat byproducts; sheep, meat; horse, fat; horse, meat byproducts; horse, meat; milk; and milk, fat. Bayer CropScience requested these tolerances under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA), as amended by the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 (FQPA).

EPA is announcing the approval of an amendment to the statewide NOX rule for the state of Missouri. The purpose of this rule is to reduce the state's contribution to the St. Louis 8-hour ozone nonattainment area. Consequently, the reductions in NOX emissions will also help to reduce the amount of PM2.5 precursors in the area. This action is necessary to complete the process of incorporating the amended rule into Missouri's ozone SIP.

This notice announces the availability of EPA's human health risk assessment for the soil fumigant 1,3-Dichloropropene (1,3-D), which is commonly referred to as telone, and opens a public comment period on this document. Although 1,3-D has undergone reregistration and a Reregistration Eligibility Decision was published for 1,3-D in December 1998, EPA is concurrently assessing six soil fumigants to ensure that its risk assessment approaches are consistent, and to ensure that risk tradeoffs and economic outcomes can be adequately predicted in reaching risk management decisions for the five other soil fumigants. EPA has developed a human health risk assessment for 1,3-D and is seeking comment through a public participation process in order to make available current and accurate information on this pesticide. Using this approach, EPA expects to address risks of concern for the five other soil fumigants while maintaining key use benefits.

This notice announces the availability of EPA's human health risk assessment and related documents for the pesticide dazomet, and opens a public comment period on these documents. EPA is developing a Reregistration Eligibility Decision (RED) for dazomet through the full, 6-Phase public participation process that the Agency uses to involve the public in developing pesticide reregistration and tolerance reassessment decisions. EPA also is concurrently assessing the risks of five other soil fumigant pesticides to ensure that its assessment approaches are consistent and to ensure that risk trade offs and economic outcomes can be adequately predicted in reaching risk management decisions. Through these programs, EPA is ensuring that all pesticides meet current health and safety standards.

This regulation establishes a tolerance for residues of imidacloprid 1-[(6-chloro-3-pyridinyl)methyl]-N-nitro-2- imidazolidinimine in or on soybean, seed and soybean, meal. Gustafson LLC requested this tolerance under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA), as amended by the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 (FQPA). EPA is also deleting certain imidacloprid tolerances that are no longer needed as a result of this action.

This regulation revises and harmonizes test procedures from the various EPA programs for controlling engine emissions. It does not change emission standards, nor is it intended to change the emission reductions expected from these EPA programs. Rather, it amends the regulations that describe laboratory specifications for equipment and test fuels, instructions for preparing engines and running tests, calculations for determining final emission levels from measured values, and instructions for running emission tests using portable measurement devices outside the laboratory. These updated testing regulations currently apply to land-based nonroad diesel engines, land- based nonroad spark-ignition engines over 19 kilowatts, and recreational vehicles. The revisions in this final rule will update the regulations to deal more effectively with the more stringent standards recently promulgated by EPA and will also clarify and better define certain elements of the required test procedures. In particular, the amendments better specify the procedures applicable to field testing under the regulations. This action also applies the updated testing regulations to highway heavy-duty diesel engine regulations. This action is appropriate because EPA has historically drafted a full set of testing specifications for each vehicle or engine category subject to emission standards as each program was developed over the past three decades. This patchwork approach has led to some variation in test parameters across programs, which we hope to address by adopting a common set of test requirements. The primary goal of this effort is to create unified testing requirements for all engines, which when implemented will streamline laboratory efforts for EPA and industry. This action will also include other technical changes intended to clarify and better define requirements for several different EPA engine programs. These changes are relatively minor and are technical in scope.