Summary of Stakeholder Comments By Topic 

(Waste Consolidation)

Stakeholder: Navy Department Topic: Consolidation of Conditionally 

Exempt Small Quantity Generator Waste 

at a Second Facility Owned by the 

Generator

Comment: Consolidation of Conditionally Exempt Small Quantity Generator Waste at a 

Second Facility Owned by the Generator

Comment. Allow small and large quantity generator facilities the option of accepting waste from 

other generating facilities, particularly conditionally exempt small quantity generator facilities, 

under the same corporate management or ownership.

Discussion. The Navy operates multiple small facilities, such as office buildings, small industrial 

shops, and laboratories, separate from our main installations. These facilities are sometimes in 

close proximity to a main

base, but cannot be considered “onsite” because they are separated by public roads. Other small 

facilities are located remotely, such as observation stations, pumping stations, or training areas. 

Many times personnel are not permanently stationed at these facilities, and are only present for 

short periods of time throughout the year. These facilities typically generate very small quantities 

of waste and are conditionally exempt small quantity generators (CESQGs).

In accordance with 40 CFR 261.5(f)(3) and 40 CFR 261.5(g)(3), a CESQG may either treat or 

dispose of acute hazardous waste and/or hazardous waste in an onsite facility or ensure delivery to 

an off-site treatment, storage or disposal facility (TSDF). The TSDF may in this case be a 

municipal solid waste landfill. 

We suggest that a cost effective way to meet the goals of RCRA would be to allow small and 

large quantity generators the option of accepting hazardous waste generated at CESQG facilities 

under the same corporate management or ownership, and to manage these wastes along with their 

hazardous wastes generated on-site. The 90 or 180-

The standards for management of used oil at 40 CFR 279.32 provide an example similar to that of 

consolidating hazardous wastes. The used oil standards allow for aggregation at one facility the 

used oil generated at sites owned or operated by the same owner or operator.

A second example of consolidating hazardous wastes is EPA’s “Project XL Rulemaking for New 

York State Public Utilities; Hazardous Waste Management Systems; Final Rule,” July 12, 1999, 

64 FR 37623, which allows participating New York State Utilities to consolidate hazardous waste, 

which they generate at remote locations, at designated Utility-owned central collection facilities 

for up to 90 days.

The California Health and Safety Code Sections 25110.10, 25121.3, and 25163.3 also allow for 

CESQG hazardous waste generated during remote field operations (e.g., periodic maintenance 

activities) to be transported by the generator in labeled DOT containers to his off-site 

consolidation point without a manifest and without transporter registration. Waste from the remote 

site is considered to have been generated at the consolidation site on the day it arrives.
Recommendation. Allow generators to aggregate hazardous wastes from CESQG facilities at 

other small or large quantity hazardous waste generator facilities under the same ownership or 

corporate management.

Consider whether consolidation of wastes should be allowed from one generator facility to another 

under the same corporate management or ownership, irrespective of generator status.

Stakeholder: Tennessee Valley Authority Topic: Provide regulatory relief for the 

transportation of small quantities of hazardous 

waste generated at remote locations 

Comment: Provide regulatory relief for the transportation of small quantities of hazardous waste 

generated at remote locations ( e.g., communication building on a mountain, transmission 

structures on rights-of-way, and small non-staffed substations) to an intra-company facility where 

secure storage and pickup by a permitted hazardous waste transporter is feasible.

No EPA ID should be required for remote locations under the conditions outlined in item one 

above. Relaxed requirements should be provided for a once-per rolling- 12-month generation 

event. Hazardous waste generation frequency greater than this should trigger the requirements to 

obtain an EPA ID.

Stakeholder: Utility Solid Waste Activities 

Group (USWAG)

Topic: Allow For Utility Intra-Company 

Waste Consolidation

Comment: EPA Should Complete Its Initiative To Tailor the Generator Regulations To 

Allow For Utility Intra-Company Waste Consolidation. EPA’s generator reform initiative 

provides the ideal opportunity for the Agency to reinitiate and finalize its earlier efforts to tailor 

RCRA’s generator program to allow for the intra-company consolidation of hazardous 

wastes by electric and gas utilities (collectively “utilities”). This is an effort that EPA and 

USWAG worked closely together on several years ago when the Agency was poised to issue a 

proposed rule that would have conformed RCRA’s generator rules to more realistically 

reflect the true function and nature of utility intra-company waste consolidation operations. 

In short, the concept would have allowed utilities to consolidate intra-company hazardous 

wastes from remote off-site utility locations (e.g., utility manholes) at a company-owned 

utility central collection facility (“UCCF”) without the need for the UCCF to obtain a RCRA 

storage permit.

The reasoning behind this initiative was EPA’s realization that utility waste consolidation 

operations do not fall within the typical paradigm of a RCRA hazardous waste generator –

i.e., a single facility generating hazardous wastes that are shipped directly to a TSDF. 

Rather, generating and providing electricity and gas services to commercial and residential 

customers requires a widely dispersed generation and distribution system including, among 

other things, power plants, substations, utility access vaults (e.g., manholes), transmission 

lines (both gas and electric), gas pipelines, utility poles, and service centers, all of which are 

distributed over a utility’s respective service area. Under a literal reading of EPA’s current 

hazardous waste rules, when these many diverse and often remote sites generate hazardous 
waste, they are viewed as distinct and separate hazardous waste generators and are required, 

among other things, to (1) obtain a separate I.D. number, (2) comply with the full panoply of 

EPA’s hazardous waste manifest and land ban notification requirements for each off-site

shipment of waste, and (3) transport such wastes directly to a fully permitted or interim status 

treatment, storage or disposal (“TSD”) facility.

This regulatory regime frustrates the ability of utilities to cost effectively consolidate wastes 

from intra-company remote locations at a company-owned UCCF, before shipping the wastes to 

a commercial TSD facility. USWAG has long advocated that this result is unnecessarily

burdensome, wasteful of private and public resources, and environmentally counter-productive 

because it results in more shipments of hazardous wastes on public roadways and hinders the 

ability of electric utilities to consolidate wastes for purposes of cost-effective recycling.

Indeed, under the federal PCB regulatory program, EPA has long authorized the 

intra-company consolidation of PCBs wastes by utilities – which, like RCRA hazardous 

wastes, are generated throughout a company’s transmission and distribution system –

without converting the central collection facility to a “commercial storer of PCB waste.” 

See definition of “Commercial storer of PCB waste” at 40 C.F.R. § 761.3 (“Storage of one 

company’s PCB waste by a related company is not considered commercial storage.”). See

definition of “Commercial storer of PCB waste” at 40 C.F.R. § 761.3 (“Storage of one 

company’s PCB waste by a related company is not considered commercial 

storage.”)....................................

As discussed below, there are compelling reasons for the RCRA program to follow suit.

EPA’s New York XL Rule Underscores the Need for a Similar Rule Of National 

Applicability. EPA’s earlier efforts to develop an intra-company consolidation rule for 

utility wastes was correctly predicated on the realization that allowing utilities to 

consolidate intra-company wastes at a UCCF would greatly facilitate the efficient and 

environmentally sound management of such wastes, while decreasing the environmental 

risks associated with the large number of individual waste shipments from remote sites to 

commercial TSDFs. This national effort, however, was temporarily curtailed pending EPA’s

issuance of the New York State XL rule, which addressed this same issue, albeit only for utilities 

in New York under the auspices of the limited parameters of EPA’s XL program. 64 Fed. Reg. 

37624 (July 12, 1999) (codified at 40 C.F.R. § 262.90). In short, that rule allows hazardous 

wastes generated at a utility’s remote locations to be consolidated without a RCRA permit for up 

to 90 days at a UCCF, so long as the applicable 90-day generator accumulation conditions are 

met at the UCCF. Id. at § 262.90(b)(1).

The rule also requires, among other things, that UCCFs only receive hazardous wastes 

from the company’s remote locations and that specified shipments of hazardous wastes 

(greater than 100 kilograms of hazardous waste) from remote sites to a UCCF comply with 

applicable hazardous waste manifest and DOT transportation requirements. Id. at 

§§ 262.90(b)(3) & (9). Only the UCCF is required to obtain an EPA I.D. number (as 

opposed to each individual remote location), and the UCCF’s biennial report is allowed to 

include the hazardous wastes received from remote locations. Id. at §§ 262.90(b)(5) & (8). 
The New York State XL rule properly recognizes that consolidation of utility 

intra-company wastes from remote locations at a utility-owned UCCF is an integral

component of a utility’s hazardous waste generation function. The rule, therefore, 

appropriately encompasses this consolidation practice within the confines of RCRA’s 

generator program, as opposed to regulating the UCCF as a distinct and wholly unrelated

TSDF.

The compelling policy reasons behind the New York State XL rule are, of course, applicable to 

utilities across the country, and EPA’s generator reform initiative is the perfect forum for 

resolving this long-standing issue at the federal level. Although several states have taken the 

initiative to allow intra-company hazardous waste consolidation where they can, the states are 

not able to provide the uniform, across-the-board solution that is needed. As the New York XL 

rule illustrates, literal application of the RCRA rules to these practices is akin to trying to place a 

square peg in a round hole; it does not work and reform is needed......

The Agency also acknowledged that allowing for the intra-company consolidation of utility 

wastes “will enhance the protection of public health and the environment by facilitating 

and requiring the more immediate removal of hazardous waste that is difficult to properly 

secure at remote locations to staffed and secure UCCFs.” Id. In addition, by allowing for 

this type of consolidation, “the number of vehicle trips that must be made to the often-distant 

TSDF” is minimized, and associated “emissions from mobile sources are reduced, as well as 

vehicular fuel consumption and the possibility of an accident involving a vehicle transporting 

this waste.” Id. In addition to the environmental benefits, there are corresponding efficiencies 

for utilities and state agencies. Again, as EPA explained:

Utilities should realize considerable savings in direct costs through 

efficiencies in transportation by consolidating hazardous waste. Reducing 

the number of trips made to often-remote TSDFs by waste-transporting vehicles 

also reduces mobile source emissions. Elimination of the need to complete 

biennial reports should bring about a very significant reduction in paperwork and 

savings in time and labor, both for Utilities and environmental regulatory group 

agencies, who can then redirect such resources to other environmental needs.

EPA Has Established The Legal Basis for a Utility Consolidation Rule Falling 

Within the Realm of “Generator” Activities. As EPA correctly reasoned in 

promulgating and then later successfully defending the New York State XL rule, the 

intra-company consolidation of hazardous wastes by utilities is “incidental to [a] utility’s 

operations as a generator of hazardous waste” and it is well within EPA’s statutory 

discretion to characterize such consolidation activities as “generator” activities, as opposed 

to subjecting UCCFs consolidating such wastes to RCRA’s TSDF permit requirements. 

See EPA Brief in Atlantic States Legal Foundation v. EPA, No. 99-1409 (D.C. Cir.) at 20-21 

(relevant portions of EPA’s brief in that case are attached hereto); see also 64 Fed. Reg. at 37630 

(it is “inappropriate to require” a utility central collection point for such wastes to obtain a 

storage permit “because it [the central collection point] is not acting as a TSDF”) (emphasis 

added).

EPA elaborated on this point by noting that the “creation of a special rule to address the unique 
circumstances faced by utilities is well within the discretion that RCRA gives EPA to determine 

which activities are incident to generation, and which require a TSD permit.” EPA Br. at 20. 

The XL rule represented “an exercise of the discretion that the statute gives to the Agency to 

determine the bounds of the generator and TSD categories.” Id. at 20-21. EPA’s brief also 

reiterated the underlying basis for a consolidation rule targeted to utilities:

Most hazardous waste is generated at industrial or commercial facilities that are 

staffed and have the capability to appropriately manage accumulated wastes. The 

general RCRA rules are well suited to such facilities. However, the remote locations 

operated by utilities present a very different situation, and the [XL] rule under review 

is an attempt by the Agency to create a regulatory regime suited to the unusual, if not 

unique, circumstances faced by utilities.

Because the New York State XL rule was promulgated in the context of the broader EPA XL 

program, certain elements of that rule obviously are not appropriate for inclusion in a rule of 

national applicability. Instead, the core elements of the New York XL rule – those that 

were directed to remedy the fundamental inconsistencies with applying RCRA’s existing 

rules to utility intra-company waste consolidation practices – should serve as the cornerstone 

for a rule of national applicability. These would include, for example, the threshold and 

fundamental principle that utilities can consolidate hazardous wastes generated at remote locations 

without a RCRA permit for up to 90 days at a UCCF (40 C.F.R. § 262.90(b)(1)). In addition, as 

EPA has recognized for the intra-company consolidation of PCB wastes under TSCA (see 40 

C.F.R. § 761.207(a)), USWAG does not believe that such consolidation practices should trigger 

RCRA’s manifest requirements, but that a more streamlined intra-company tracking system better 

serves such intra-company transfers. USWAG looks forward to working with EPA in the 

development of a national rule allowing utilities to consolidate intra-company wastes at UCCFs.

3 commenters; 3 comments

New

Stakeholder: American Chemical Society Topic: Definition of "on-site"

Comment: BACKGROUND: EPA requires that hazardous waste generators have an EPA 

identification number. Many campuses (i.e., academic and research) are made up of contiguous 

properties transected by public roads. Under the current definition, campuses are often deemed 

multiple sites and are required to obtain different EPA ID numbers for various portions of campus. 

This prevents the consolidation of wastes from the entire facility, resulting in inefficiency in 

packaging, duplication of storage requirements, and significantly increased paperwork and costs.

PROPOSAL: We recommend a change to the definition of "on-site" in 40 CFR 260.10 be made to 

allow a single EPA Identification number for a facility with contiguous property.