Environmental Protection Agency April 10, 2007 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This action announces the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) intent to implement an expedited process for approving alternative testing methods for existing regulations for drinking water contaminants. The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) authorizes EPA to approve the use of alternative testing methods through publication of a notice in the Federal Register instead of through rulemaking procedures. EPA plans to use this streamlined authority to make additional methods available for analyzing drinking water compliance and unregulated contaminant monitoring samples. This expedited approach will provide public water systems, laboratories, and primacy agencies with more timely access to new measurement techniques and greater flexibility in the selection of analytical methods, thereby reducing monitoring costs while maintaining public health protection. This notice requests comments on implementation aspects of the expedited method approval process.

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. The ICR which is abstracted below describes the nature of the collection and the estimated burden and cost.

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. This ICR is scheduled to expire on May 31, 2007. 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 and cost.

By this notice, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Underground Storage Tanks (OUST) is advising the public that EPA is issuing for public comment draft operator training grant guidelines for states. In this notice, EPA is publishing the draft operator training grant guidelines in their entirety. In addition, EPA will subsequently post the draft on EPA's Web site. EPA will accept public comments on the draft guidelines submitted by May 10, 2007. Because EPA does not consider this a notice and comment rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act based on the exemption for grant documents (5 U.S.C. 553(a)(2)), EPA will consider but not respond to comments and will not establish a rulemaking docket. EPA developed the draft operator training grant guidelines as required by Section 9010 of Subtitle I of the Solid Waste Disposal Act, as amended by Section 1524 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.