Environmental Protection Agency August 3, 2005 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

On January 31, 2005 (70 FR 4958), EPA announced an opportunity for animal feeding operations (AFOs) to sign a voluntary consent agreement and final order (air compliance agreement). This supplemental notice announces a reopening to the signup period for the consent agreement and final order.

In this action, EPA is proposing to correct an error in the notice which approved the removal of Oregon's control technology guidelines for perchloroethylene (perc) dry cleaning systems and related definitions and provisions, published on December 1, 2004. Perc is a solvent commonly used in dry cleaning, maskant operations, and degreasing operations. In the notice published on December 1, 2004 (69 FR 69823), EPA inadvertently listed an incorrect State effective date in the incorporation by reference section which listed revised provisions of the Oregon Administrative Rules. This proposed action would correct the erroneous date so that the appropriate version of the Oregon Administrative Rules is incorporated by reference.

EPA is revoking exemptions from the requirement of a tolerance for three inert ingredients (dichlorodifluoromethane, dichlorotetrafluoroethane, and trichlorofluoromethane) because these substances no longer have active Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) pesticide product registrations and/or because their use in pesticide products sold in the United States (U.S.) has been prohibited under the Clean Air Act (CAA) for over a decade due to EPA's ban on the sale or distribution, or offer for sale or distribution in interstate commerce of certain nonessential products that contain or are manufactured with ozone depleting compounds. The regulatory actions in this document contribute toward the Agency's tolerance reassessment requirements of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) section 408(q), as amended by the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) of 1996. By law, EPA is required by August 2006 to reassess the tolerances in existence on August 2, 1996. The regulatory actions in this document pertain to the revocation of five tolerance exemptions of which five count as tolerance reassessments toward the August, 2006 review deadline.

In accordance with section 6(f)(1) of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), EPA announced in theFederal Register of July 20, 2005, a notice of receipt of an irrevocable request for an amendment by the Hartz Mountain Corporation to delete a use for EPA Registration Number 2596-151. The document inadvertently omitted a sentence from the DATES unit and omitted the ADDRESSES unit. This document corrects those errors.

The Environmental Protection Agency is finalizing its proposed action to grant a petition submitted by the United States Department of Energy, Richland Operations Office (Energy) to exclude (or `delist') from regulation as listed hazardous waste certain mixed waste (`petitioned waste') following treatment at the 200 Area Effluent Treatment Site (200 Area ETF) on the Hanford Facility, Richland, Washington. This action conditionally grants the exclusion based on an evaluation of waste stream-specific and treatment process information provided by Energy. Wastes meeting the conditions of this exclusion are exempt from the requirements of hazardous waste regulations under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) of 1976 as amended. In finalizing this action, EPA has concluded that Energy's petitioned waste does not meet any of the criteria under which the wastes were originally listed, and that there is no reasonable basis to believe other factors exist which could cause the waste to be hazardous.

In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.), this document announces that an Information Collection Request (ICR) has been forwarded to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval. This is a request to renew an existing approved collection for the Water Quality Standards Regulation. This ICR is scheduled to expire on August 31, 2005. Under OMB regulations, the Agency may continue to conduct or sponsor the collection of information while this submission is pending at OMB. This ICR describes the nature of the information collection and its estimated burden.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or Agency) is today granting two site-specific treatment standard variances from the Land Disposal Restrictions (LDR) treatment standards to Chemical Waste Management, Chemical Services LLC (CWM), and to Heritage Environmental Services LLC (Heritage), to treat a selenium-bearing hazardous waste from the glass manufacturing industry. This final rule follows a proposed rule and a subsequent request for comment. These facilities intend to treat and dispose of selenium-bearing hazardous waste from Guardian Industries Corp. (Guardian) at their RCRA permitted facilities in Model City, New York and Indianapolis, Indiana, respectively. Based on treatment data on a new proprietary chemical stabilization technology provided by Heritage, EPA is issuing variances so that both facilities may treat the Guardian waste to an alternate treatment standard of 11 mg/L selenium, as measured by the TCLP. Upon promulgation of this final rule, CWM and Heritage may dispose of the treated waste in permitted RCRA Subtitle C landfills, provided they meet the applicable LDR treatment standards for any other hazardous constituents in the waste. EPA is granting these variances because the chemical properties of the wastes differ significantly from the waste used to establish the current LDR standard for selenium (5.7 mg/L, as measured by the Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP)), and the petitions have adequately demonstrated that the waste cannot be treated to meet this treatment standard.

On April 30, 2004, EPA published the first phase of its final rule to implement the 8-Hour Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) (Phase 1 Rule). At that same time, EPA also published 8-hour ozone designations for all areas of the country. For most areas, the 8-hour ozone designations became effective on June 15, 2004. The Phase 1 Rule provided that the 1-hour ozone NAAQS would no longer apply (i.e., would be revoked) for an area 1 year following the effective date of the area's designation for the 8-hour ozone NAAQS. This rule codifies the revocation of the 1-hour standard for those areas with effective 8-hour ozone designations. Because the Phase 1 Rule, as modified in a recent reconsideration rule, also provided that certain 1-hour nonattainment and maintenance obligations that applied as of the effective date of designation for the 8-hour NAAQS remain in place for an area, we are retaining the tables in 40 CFR part 81 that identify each area's 1-hour designation and classification status as of the effective date of the 8-hour designation for the area. The regulatory changes do not modify the tables for Early Action Compact areas for which the 1-hour NAAQS continues to apply. In addition, today's rule makes a technical correction to the last sentence in 40 CFR 51.905(c)(1) to reference 40 CFR part 81, subpart C as identifying the boundaries of areas and the area designations and classifications for the 1-hour ozone NAAQS that were in place as of the effective date of designation of the area for the 8-hour NAAQS. This rule eliminates the reservation of subpart E of part 81 for the above identification purpose.

Since the amendments of October 1988, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) has required payment of an annual maintenance fee to keep pesticide registrations in effect. The fee due January 15, 2005 has gone unpaid for 831 registrations. Section 4(i)(5)(G) of FIFRA provides that the Administrator may cancel these registrations by order and without a hearing; orders to cancel all 831 of these registrations have been issued within the past few days.