Environmental Protection Agency May 13, 2010 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is making available to the public draft default emission factors for semiconductor manufacturing refined process categories. On April 12, 2010 EPA published a proposed rule, Mandatory Reporting of Greenhouse Gases: Additional Sources of Fluorinated GHGs (75 FR 18652) which included proposed methods for monitoring and reporting greenhouse gases (GHGs) from electronics manufacturing. More specifically, as one option for monitoring and reporting, EPA proposed semiconductor manufacturers estimate emissions using default emission factors for nine distinct process categories. For each default emission factor, EPA proposed a range of values differentiated by production technology generation (i.e., wafer size). Based on additional information received since the publication of the proposed rule, EPA has developed draft emission factors for the proposed process categories. EPA is making those draft emission factors as well as the underlying data that was used to develop the draft emission factors available to the public for review and comment in the report, Draft Emission Factors for Refined Semiconductor Manufacturing Process Categories.

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.

EPA is announcing a 60-day public comment period and a public listening session for the external review draft document titled ``Toxicological Review of Hexachloroethane: In Support of Summary Information on the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS)'' (EPA/ 635/R-09/007). The draft document was prepared by the National Center for Environmental Assessment (NCEA) within the EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD). The public comment period and the external peer- review workshop, which will be scheduled at a later date and announced in the Federal Register, are separate processes that provide opportunities for all interested parties to comment on the document. EPA intends to forward the public comments that are submitted in accordance with this notice to the external peer-review panel prior to the meeting for their consideration. When finalizing the draft document, EPA intends to consider any public comments that EPA receives in accordance with this notice.