Environmental Protection Agency October 13, 2006 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

EPA expressed environmental concerns about the adverse impacts of sediment and manure to water quality. Alternative 3 Destination Management offers the best remedy and should be given additional consideration. The final EIS should include a detailed monitoring and enforcement plan. Rating EC2.

This action corrects the 8-hour ozone nonattainment boundary for Monroe County, Georgia by deleting a highway from the boundary description, and clarifies the 8-hour ozone nonattainment boundary for Murray County, Georgia by adding a boundary description. Monroe County, Georgia is part of the Macon, Georgia 8-hour ozone nonattainment area and a portion of Murray County, Georgia makes up the Murray County (Chattahoochee National Forest Mountains), Georgia 8-hour ozone nonattainment area. The nonattainment boundaries for these two counties were described in EPA's final 8-hour ozone designations rule which was published in the Federal Register on April 30, 2004. EPA is clarifying the exact location of the 8-hour ozone nonattainment boundary for Murray County by including the precise descriptions of the boundary in the Code of Federal Regulations. In addition, pursuant to Clean Air Act (CAA) section 110(k)(6), EPA is also correcting an error made in identifying the 8-hour ozone nonattainment boundary for Monroe County.

Section 5 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) requires any person who intends to manufacture (defined by statute to include import) a new chemical (i.e., a chemical not on the TSCA Inventory) to notify EPA and comply with the statutory provisions pertaining to the manufacture of new chemicals. Under sections 5(d)(2) and 5(d)(3) of TSCA, EPA is required to publish a notice of receipt of a premanufacture notice (PMN) or an application for a test marketing exemption (TME), and to publish periodic status reports on the chemicals under review and the receipt of notices of commencement to manufacture those chemicals. This status report, which covers the period from September 11, 2006 to September 15, 2006, consists of the PMNs and TME both pending or expired, and the notices of commencement to manufacture a new chemical that the Agency has received under TSCA section 5 during this time period.

EPA is announcing the availability of a final report titled, ``A Framework for Assessing Health Risks of Environmental Exposures to Children'' (EPA/600/R-05/093F), prepared by the National Center for Environmental Assessment (NCEA) within EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD).

Section 5 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) requires any person who intends to manufacture (defined by statute to include import) a new chemical (i.e., a chemical not on the TSCA Inventory) to notify EPA and comply with the statutory provisions pertaining to the manufacture of new chemicals. Under sections 5(d)(2) and 5(d)(3) of TSCA, EPA is required to publish a notice of receipt of a premanufacture notice (PMN) or an application for a test marketing exemption (TME), and to publish periodic status reports on the chemicals under review and the receipt of notices of commencement to manufacture those chemicals. This status report, which covers the period from August 28, 2006 to September 8, 2006, consists of the PMNs pending or expired, and the notices of commencement to manufacture a new chemical that the Agency has received under TSCA section 5 during this time period.

The EPA promulgated regulations to address a type of visibility impairment known as regional haze in 1999. These regulations have been judicially challenged twice. On May 24, 2002, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a ruling vacating the Regional Haze Rule in part and sustaining it in part, based on a finding that EPA's prescribed methods for determining best available retrofit technology (BART) were inconsistent with the Clean Air Act (CAA). American Corn Growers Ass'n v. EPA, 291 F.3d 1 (DC Cir. 2002). We finalized a rule on July 6, 2005 addressing the court's ruling in this case. On February 18, 2005, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued another ruling, in Center for Energy and Economic Development v. EPA, 398 F.3d 653(DC Cir. 2005), granting a petition challenging provisions of the Regional Haze Rule governing an optional emissions trading program for certain western States and Tribes (the Western Regional Air Partnership (WRAP) Annex Rule). We published proposed regulations to revise the provisions of the Regional Haze Rule governing alternative trading programs, and to provide additional guidance on such programs in August 2005. We received several comments on the August 2005 proposal. This final rule finalizes the proposed revisions, including changes in response to the public comments.