44 Canal Center Plaza ▪ Suite 310 ▪ Alexandria, Virginia 22314 ▪ Tel: (703) 684-0084 ▪ Fax: (703) 684-0427

VIA E-MAIL

April 13, 2010

Mr. Jeffrey A. Telander

Sector Policies and Programs Division

Metals and Minerals Group (D243-02)

Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

109 TW Alexander Drive

Research Triangle Park, NC 27711

Mr. William Neuffer

Sector Policies and Programs Division

Metals and Minerals Group (D243-02)

Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

109 TW Alexander Drive 

Research Triangle Park, NC 27711

RE: CBI and Related Issues in Enclosure 1 of ICR

Dear Messrs. Telander and Neuffer:

The North American Insulation Manufacturers Association (“NAIMA”) appreciates the 

opportunity to discuss with the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) specific questions set 

forth in Enclosure 1 of the draft Information Collection Request (“ICR”). The modification or 

removal of some of these questions would help to expedite the ICR process. Set forth below are 

the questions that NAIMA would like to discuss with EPA.

The specific objections set forth in this letter share two elements: first, the relevance of these 

requests to residual risk or emissions of hazardous air pollutants (“HAPs”) is not evident and an 

explanation is merited; and second, the information requested, in most cases, needs to be treated 

as confidential business information (“CBI”). Even where some of this data can be treated as 

CBI, NAIMA offers alternatives that can be equally effective in meeting EPA’s needs while 

providing more rigorous protection to sensitive trade information.
Messrs. Jeffrey A. Telander and William Neuffer

April 13, 2010

Page 2

ENCLOSURE 1

Form A-2

EPA asks for the number of employees attached to a manufacturing facility. The number of 

employees is not relevant to residual risk. Therefore, the non-public companies should not be 

burdened with supplying this information. Moreover, the number of employees is 

sensitive/confidential information because the number of employees would plainly speak to the 

level of ongoing production. It is also confidential business information. The disclosure of this 

information is even more troubling because the data would most likely be inaccurate. Production 

is down throughout the industry and any numbers given to EPA would not accurately reflect 

typical production level employment. Therefore, the information would not only be irrelevant to 

residual risk, but would also not provide an accurate depiction of company employment in a 

healthy economy. If EPA is concerned about exposure to HAPs in the workplace, NAIMA can 

authoritatively state that no employee receives any exposure in excess of the applicable 

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) limit. NAIMA and its members have 

a history of responsible product stewardship as an industry1and as individual companies. EPA’s 

residual risk process and MACT standard setting are appropriately concerned with releases to the 

ambient air, not OSHA-regulated work spaces. Thus, the number of workers is irrelevant and 

NAIMA requests that the question on employees be removed from the ICR.

Form B-2

EPA requests a list of raw materials and binder ingredients and the proportion of each of those 

ingredients. The specific and detailed proportions used by each manufacturer are a carefully

guarded trade secret. Historically, NAIMA has provided regulatory bodies an aggregated 

average of the percentage of product formulas from data collected by legal counsel. This 

approach ensures EPA will know the identity of the constituents without a proprietary list of 

detailed proportions. This approach has eliminated the risk of disclosing unique trade secrets to 

a third party and avoids the need for the Agency to take on the burden of managing confidential 

business information where inadvertent disclosure may occur. This approach also provides EPA 

with information it needs – a list of the raw materials that go into product formulations and an 

accurate estimate of the proportion of each raw material ingredient.

Form B-1, B-3, and B-4

NAIMA requests the “estimated remaining lifetime” and other rebuild information be removed 

from the list of requested information. This information is not relevant to residual risk. Fiber 

glass insulation furnace rebuilds, though routine, are infrequent. At the end of a furnace’s 

lifecycle and during the subsequent furnace rebuild, refractory linings are removed and replaced. 

Certain repairs during a furnace’s lifecycle may also necessitate the removal and/or replacement 

 

1 NAIMA, “NAIMA’s Health and Safety Partnership Program,” Pub. No. NO30, 12/02; G.E. Marchant, et al., “A 

Synthetic Vitreous Fiber (SVF) Occupational Exposure Database: Implementing the SVF Health and Safety 

Partnership Program,” Applied Occupational and Environment Hygiene, 17(4): 276-285, 2002.
Messrs. Jeffrey A. Telander and William Neuffer

April 13, 2010

Page 3

of refractories, but such repairs are not furnace rebuilds. Furnace and melter refractory

rebricking is crucial to maintaining a safe and reliable facility. Refractory lining replacement is 

driven largely by two inherent characteristics of the manufacturing process – the high heat 

(approximately 2500 degrees Fahrenheit) and the alkaline glass chemistry required to produce 

the molten glass that is used to manufacture fiber glass insulation. Other factors that affect the 

frequency of rebuilds include the size of the furnace, firing (gas/oxy, electric, etc.), the intensity 

of operations, and the corrosiveness of the glass melt. Ultimately, the furnace refractory bricks 

are eroded during normal operation of the facility and must be routinely replaced.2 Information 

concerning each member’s planned furnace rebuild dates is proprietary, confidential business 

information.

Mineral wool companies do not use chrome-containing refractories to rebuild cupolas as in the 

fiber glass industry; however, the liner of the cupola may be replaced.

Form B-8

EPA asks for a description of “any work practices, pollution prevention techniques, and control 

strategies evaluated and/or implemented at each process unit at your facility . . . you must specify 

the year in which the facility implemented the practice.” There are no legal requirements to 

maintain records at the level of detail requested by EPA. Therefore, to request such extensive 

information is onerous and burdensome. NAIMA and its member companies are shouldering a 

significant burden to respond to the legitimate data requests. It is unreasonable to impose such 

time-intensive exercises on the companies at this time. NAIMA requests that EPA modify the 

question to allow the companies to provide information regarding work practices, pollution 

prevention techniques, and control strategies that have actually been implemented and that is 

available and responsive to the question. In addition, it seems the question on Form B-8 is 

repetitive of questions on Forms B-3 through B-6.

Form C

On Forms C-1, C-2, C-3, C-4, and C-7, EPA asks for the amount and method of wastewater and 

waste disposal. The vast majority of wool fiberglass and mineral wool manufacturers do not 

discharge wastewater that contains or has been in contact with binder. That water is recycled in 

the production process. The recycling system does not involve storing wastewater in open 

reservoirs or collection ponds. The closed-loop systems, and in some facilities the holding tanks, 

are housed under the roof of the manufacturing facility where any emissions would likely be 

drawn into the collection stack and be counted with those emissions. As such, there are no 

binder-related air emissions from ponds. There may be small levels of emissions from the 

holding tanks associated with this closed loop system. Further, it is typical for the holding tank 

units to include lids. In other words, the likelihood of HAPs being released from these 

wastewater systems is limited. Under these conditions, the relevance of wastewater discharges

 

2

See Generally Fay V. Tooley, The Handbook of Glass Manufacture § 7 (3d ed. 1984).
Messrs. Jeffrey A. Telander and William Neuffer

April 13, 2010

Page 4

to a determination of residual risk from air pollutant emissions is not apparent. If EPA is 

concerned about water pollution, it should not be explored in a Clean Air Act-related ICR.

Form F

EPA requests highly sensitive cost, sales, and profit data that has no relevance to residual risk. 

Moreover, sales and profit data have no relation to emissions. Sales and profit data relate to 

economic conditions. In other words, it is possible for a facility to have a high profit margin and 

healthy sales and very low emissions, and in another year that same company could have low 

profits and sales and yet have higher emissions than previous years. NAIMA strongly objects to 

providing EPA with sales, profit, and cost data because it is not relevant to residual risk, 

emissions, or EPA’s mandate to regulate air emissions. In addition, it is confidential business 

information. Moreover, much of the cost information requested by EPA is not data that 

companies would possess. Most accounting systems used in the industry do not have the details 

requested by EPA. Most companies within the industry do not maintain its records in a manner 

that would allow this data to be readily extracted. The effort to supply EPA with relevant data 

and information will require considerable time and resources. It is not equitable or prudent to 

divert those resources into areas that will not produce any data relevant to an assessment of 

residual risk. Therefore, NAIMA requests that these questions relating to sales, profit, and costs 

be removed from the ICR.

As the wool fiberglass and mineral wool industries proceed with the completion of the ICR, there 

may be additional inquires and requests for clarification. Therefore, NAIMA reserves the right 

to raise additional issues in the future. NAIMA also seeks clarification on how to handle 

electronic filing of CBI.

Sincerely,

Angus E. Crane

Angus E. Crane

Executive Vice President, General Counsel