Environmental Protection Agency September 18, 2007 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region II Office announces the deletion of the Grand Street Mercury Superfund Site from the National Priorities List (NPL). The Grand Street Mercury Site is located in the city of Hoboken, Hudson County, New Jersey. The NPL constitutes Appendix B to the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan (NCP), 40 CFR part 300, which EPA promulgated pursuant to section 105 of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), as amended. EPA and the State of New Jersey, through the Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) have determined that all appropriate response actions have been implemented and no further response actions are required. In addition, EPA and the NJDEP have determined that the remedial action taken at the Grand Street Mercury Site is protective of public health, welfare, and the environment.

With certain exceptions, section 6(e)(3) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) bans the manufacture, processing, and distribution in commerce of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). For purposes of TSCA, ``manufacture'' is defined to include import into the Customs Territory of the United States. One of these exceptions is TSCA section 6(e)(3)(B), which gives EPA authority to grant petitions to perform these activities for a period of up to 12 months, provided EPA can make certain findings by rule. On July 21, 2005, the United States Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), a component of the United States Department of Defense (DOD), submitted a petition to EPA to import foreign-manufactured PCBs that DOD currently owns in Japan for disposal in the United States. In this document, EPA is granting DLA's petition. This decision to grant the petition allows DLA to manufacture (i.e., import) certain PCBs for disposal.

In this rulemaking, EPA is making certain technical corrections to the rules establishing emission standards for nonroad diesel engines. In addition, we are amending those rules to provide nonroad diesel equipment manufacturers with a production technical relief provision for Tier 3 equipment which is similar to the technical relief provision already available for Tier 4 equipment. Like the Tier 4 provisions, the new Tier 3 technical relief provision deals with a situation where an equipment manufacturer which is not vertically integrated with its engine supplier is unable to complete redesign of the equipment within the time required by rule (here, the Tier 3 rule). To be eligible, the equipment manufacturer must show both that its inability to furnish a compliant equipment design is due to the engine supplier, and that the equipment manufacturer has exhausted other flexibilities already provided by the Tier 3 rule. The amount of relief under the Tier 3 technical relief provision is somewhat less than is available under the parallel Tier 4 provision, however. The Tier 3 Technical flexibility will apply up to a maximum of an additional 50% of production beyond the original 80% provided by the Tier 3 production flexibility provision. In addition, each grant of Tier 3 technical relief is associated with the likelihood of earlier use of Tier 4 nonroad diesel engines. The rule thus provides that for each one percent of use of Tier 3 technical relief, some percentage of the automatic Tier 4 production flexibility for the same engine power category, and some percentage of potential Tier 4 technical relief, is no longer available. The percentage varies based on the type of engine for which Tier 3 technical relief is granted, the largest Tier 4 ``penalty'' being associated with use of the higher emitting earlier tier engines.