Environmental Protection Agency June 23, 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB) Staff Office announces a public meeting and teleconference of the Radiation Advisory Committee (RAC) augmented for an advisory review of EPA's draft report ``Considerations Related to Post-Closure Monitoring of Uranium In-Situ Leach/In-Situ Recovery (ISL/ISR) Sites.''

In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.), this document announces that the following 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.

Pursuant to the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, Public Law 92-463, notice is hereby given that the next meeting of the Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee (CHPAC) will be held July 13 and 14 at Mount Vernon Place, 900 Massachusetts Ave., NW., Washington, DC 20001. The CHPAC advises the Environmental Protection Agency on science, regulations, and other issues relating to children's environmental health.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will conduct a public webinar in order to inform interested parties about an opportunity to participate in a technical proof of concept demonstration for electronic reporting of Clean Water Act (CWA) National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Discharge Monitoring Report (DMR) compliance monitoring data. This webinar will be held on Wednesday, July 13, 2011, from 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m. EDT. EPA announced on July 6, 2009, that it would develop a Clean Water Action Plan \1\ to enhance public transparency regarding clean water enforcement performance at Federal and state levels, to strengthen that performance, and to transform EPA's water quality and compliance information systems. A consensus suggestion across co-regulators and stakeholder groups was to implement electronic reporting from facilities that are required to submit reports to a regulatory agency. To fully realize the transformation of reporting and data management into the 21st century, OECA is developing a rule to require NPDES permittees to provide a variety of environmental information electronically. EPA is exploring different electronic reporting options to enable NPDES regulated facilities to electronically submit their compliance monitoring data. EPA will conduct a technical proof of concept to demonstrate the electronic reporting of NPDES compliance monitoring data from regulated facilities via an `open platform e-file' electronic reporting option. The `open platform e-file' proof of concept demonstration will focus the electronic transmission of NPDES DMRs from a third-party commercial software provider (``provider'') to EPA. If EPA were to fully implement this option, any provider that meets the Agency's data exchange standards, protocols, and specifications would be able to offer electronic reporting services to the regulated community for the NPDES program (e.g., NPDES permitted facilities). This open platform model would likely be similar to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) model for electronic reporting, which uses third-party software providers for tax data collection and transmission (e.g., TurboTax, TaxACT, or others [no endorsement intended or implied]) from private citizens and businesses. The Agency does not intend to purchase services from any provider. All financial transactions would be between the providers and members of the regulated community. EPA will conduct a public webinar to provide an overview of the ``open platform e-file option'' and to identify person(s) interested in participating in a proof of concept demonstration of the technical feasibility of this ``open platform e- file option'' and to identify the specific system and process information necessary for this proof of concept demonstration.

EPA is taking final action to determine that the Atlanta, Georgia 1997 8-hour ozone nonattainment area has attained the 1997 8- hour ozone national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) based on quality assured, quality controlled monitoring data from 2008-2010. The Atlanta, Georgia 1997 8-hour ozone nonattainment area (hereafter referred to as the ``Atlanta Area'' or ``the Area'') is comprised of Barrow, Bartow, Carroll, Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, Coweta, Dekalb, Douglas, Fayette, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, Hall, Henry, Newton, Paulding, Rockdale, Spalding and Walton Counties in Georgia. This determination is based upon complete, quality assured, quality controlled, and certified ambient air monitoring data for the years 2008-2010 showing that the Atlanta Area has monitored attainment of the 1997 8-hour ozone NAAQS. The requirement for the State of Georgia to submit an attainment demonstration and associated reasonably available control measures (RACM) analyses, reasonable further progress (RFP) plans, contingency measures, and other planning State Implementation Plans (SIPs) related to attainment of the 1997 8-hour ozone NAAQS for the Atlanta Area, shall be suspended for as long as the Area continues to meet the 1997 8-hour ozone NAAQS.