Environmental Protection Agency March 2, 2012 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

EPA is announcing that Versar, Inc., an EPA contractor for external scientific peer review, will convene an independent panel of experts and organize and conduct an external peer review meeting to review the draft human health assessment titled, ``Toxicological Review of Biphenyl: In Support of Summary Information on the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS)'' (EPA/635/R-11/005A). The draft assessment was prepared by the National Center for Environmental Assessment (NCEA) within the EPA Office of Research and Development. EPA is releasing this draft assessment for the purposes of public comment and peer review. This draft assessment is not final as described in EPA's information quality guidelines and it does not represent and should not be construed to represent Agency policy or views. Versar invites the public to register to attend this meeting as observers. In addition, Versar invites the public to give brief oral comments and/or provide written comments at the meeting regarding the draft assessment under review. Space is limited, and reservations will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. In preparing a final report, EPA will consider Versar's report of the comments and recommendations from the external peer review meeting and any written public comments that EPA received in accordance with the announcements of the public comment period for the biphenyl assessment in a Federal Register Notice published September 30, 2011, (76FR60827).

EPA is taking direct final action to approve the fine particulate matter (PM2.5) 2002 base year emissions inventory, portion of the State Implementation Plan (SIP) revision submitted by the State of Georgia on August 17, 2009. The emissions inventory is part of the Macon, Georgia (hereafter referred to as ``the Macon Area'' or ``Area''), PM2.5 attainment demonstration that was submitted for the 1997 annual PM2.5 National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). This action is being taken pursuant to section 110 of the Clean Air Act (CAA or Act).

EPA is proposing to partially approve and partially disapprove a revision to the Nebraska State Implementation Plan (SIP) submitted by the State of Nebraska through the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (NDEQ) on July 13, 2011 that addresses regional haze for the first implementation period. This revision was submitted to address the requirements of the Clean Air Act (CAA or Act) and our rules that require States to prevent any future and remedy any existing man-made impairment of visibility in mandatory Class I areas caused by emissions of air pollutants from numerous sources located over a wide geographic area (also referred to as the ``regional haze program''). States are required to ensure reasonable progress toward the national goal of achieving natural visibility conditions in Class I areas. EPA is proposing to approve a portion of this SIP revision as meeting certain requirements of the regional haze program and to partially approve and partially disapprove those portions addressing the requirements for best available retrofit technology (BART) and the long-term strategy (LTS). EPA is proposing a Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) relying on the Transport Rule to satisfy BART for sulfur dioxide (SO2) at one source to address these issues.

This regulation establishes tolerances for residues of thiamethoxam in or on multiple commodities which are identified and discussed later in this document. Syngenta Crop Protection, Inc. requested these tolerances under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA).