Environmental Protection Agency January 22, 2007 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Interagency Testing Committee (ITC) transmitted its 59\th\ ITC Report to the Administrator of EPA on December 13, 2006. In the 59\th\ ITC Report, which is included with this notice, the ITC is revising the TSCA section 4(e) Priority Testing List by removing 22 chemicals. Phenol, 4-(1,1- dimethylethyl)- is being removed because a recently submitted reproductive effects study meets ITC's data needs. Five tungsten compounds and 16 chemicals with insufficient dermal absorption rate data are being removed because their production volumes or worker numbers indicate low potential for occupational exposures.

EPA is re-opening the public comment period for the draft document titled, ``Child-Specific Exposure Factors Handbook'' (EPA/600/ R-06/096A). The document was prepared by the National Center for Environmental Assessment within EPA's Office of Research and Development. On October 6, 2006, EPA published a Federal Register notice (71 FR 59107) announcing a 60-day public comment period that ended December 5, 2006. EPA is re-opening the public comment period for an additional 30 days in response to requests to extend the comment period. The Child-Specific Exposure Factors Handbook provides a summary of statistical data on various exposure factors used in assessing children's exposures. This Handbook serves as a resource for exposure assessors for calculating children's exposures. These factors include: drinking water consumption, soil ingestion and mouthing behavior, inhalation rates, dermal factors including skin surface area and soil adherence factors, consumption of retail and home-grown foods, breast milk intake, and activity pattern data. An interim final version of this handbook was published in 2002. The updated version provides analysis of exposure factors data using the age groups for children as recommended in the EPA document entitled, ``Guidance on Selecting Age Groups for Monitoring and Assessing Childhood Exposures to Environmental Contaminants'' (EPA/630/P-03/003F) (Available on line at https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/cfm/recordisplay.cfm?deid=146583). As previously stated in 71 FR 59107, EPA is releasing the draft ``Child-Specific Exposure Factors Handbook'' solely for the purpose of pre-dissemination peer review under applicable information quality guidelines. This document has not been formally disseminated by EPA. It does not represent and should not be construed to represent any Agency policy or determination. EPA will consider any public comments submitted in accordance with this notice when revising the document.

On December 16, 2005, EPA published final rules entitled, ``Standards of Performance for New Stationary Sources and Emission Guidelines for Existing Sources: Other Solid Waste Incineration Units.'' Following that final action, the Administrator received a petition for reconsideration. In response to the petition, on June 28, 2006, EPA announced our reconsideration of whether SSI should be excluded from the other solid waste incineration units (OSWI) rules and requested comment on this issue. After carefully considering all of the comments and information received through our reconsideration process, we have concluded that no additional changes are necessary to the final OSWI rules. With respect to all other issues raised by the petitioner, we deny the request for reconsideration.

In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) (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. The ICR which is abstracted below describes the nature of the information collection and its estimated burden and cost.