Federal Register / Vol. 70, No. 191 / Tuesday, October 4, 2005 / Notices 57871 

facilities. Owners and operators must 

also submit periodic reports 

(semiannual or according to the 

schedule for Title V), and leak detection 

and repair (LDAR) semiannual reports 

which could be submitted with the 

periodic reports. The specific 

monitoring and recordkeeping 

requirements will vary for each of the 

four source categories depending on the 

required control equipment and 

monitoring equipment. All records and 

reports are to be maintained by the 

facility for a minimum of five years. 

All reports are sent to the delegated 

state or local authority. In the event that 

there is no such delegated authority, the 

reports are sent directly to the EPA 

regional office. 

An agency may not conduct or 

sponsor, and a person is not required to 

respond to, a collection of information 

unless it displays a currently valid OMB 

Control Number. The OMB Control 

Numbers for EPA’s regulations are listed 

in 40 CFR part 9 and 48 CFR chapter 15, 

and are identified on the form and/or 

instrument, if applicable. 

Burden Statement: The annual public 

reporting and recordkeeping burden for 

this collection of information is 

estimated to average 133 hours per 

response. Burden means the total time, 

effort, or financial resources expended 

by persons to generate, maintain, retain, 

disclose or provide information to or for 

a Federal agency. This includes the time 

needed to review instructions; to 

develop, acquire, install, and utilize 

technology and systems for the purposes 

of collecting, validating, and verifying 

information, processing and 

maintaining information, and disclosing 

and providing information; to adjust the 

existing ways to comply with any 

previously applicable instructions and 

requirements; to train personnel to be 

able to respond to a collection of 

information; to search data sources; to 

complete and review the collection of 

information; and to transmit or 

otherwise disclose the information. 

Respondents/Affected Entities: 

Owners or operators of acetal resins 

production, acrylic and modacrylic 

fibers production, hydrogen fluoride 

production, and polycarbonates 

production. 

Estimated Number of Respondents: 

10. 

Frequency of Response: On occasion, 

semiannually, and initally. 

Estimated Total Annual Hour Burden: 

4,004 hours. 

Estimated Total Annual Costs: 

$438,560, which includes $0 annualized 

Capital/startup costs, $107,414 in 

annual O&M costs, and $331,146 in 

Respondent Labor costs. 

Changes in the Estimates: There is a 

decrease of 73 hours in the estimated 

burden currently identified in the OMB 

Inventory of Approved ICR Burdens. 

This is due to minor calculation errors 

in the active ICR. There is an increase 

in the labor costs associated with this 

ICR, which is due to an updated hourly 

wage rate that is provided by the United 

States Department of Labor. Because 

there are no new sources with reporting 

requirements, no capital/startup costs 

are incurred. A cost of $107,414 per 

year, is incurred for operation and 

maintenance of the emission monitoring 

equipment with this ICR. 

Dated: September 21, 2005. 

Oscar Morales, 

Director, Collection Strategies Division. 

[FR Doc. 05–19866 Filed 10–3–05; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6560–50–P 

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION 

AGENCY 

[FRL–7532–9] 

Toxics Release Inventory 2006 Burden 

Reduction 

AGENCY: Environmental Protection 

Agency (EPA). 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: EPA’s Toxics Release 

Inventory Program is today announcing 

its intent to explore potential 

approaches for modification of the 

reporting frequency of facilities that 

report to TRI. Among the options to be 

considered is alternate year reporting, 

which would require Congressional 

notification as discussed in section 

313(i) of the Emergency Planning and 

Community Right-to-Know-Act 

(EPCRA). EPA has notified Congress, as 

required by this provision, of its intent 

to initiate a rulemaking to modify TRI 

reporting frequency. Today’s notice is in 

addition to the Agency’s recent 

proposal, Toxics Release Inventory 

Burden Reduction Proposed Rule 

elsewhere in Today’s Federal Register, 

designed to reduce reporting burden on 

facilities reporting to TRI by increasing 

eligibility for the Form A Certification 

Statement. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Suzanne Ackerman, 

ackerman.suzanne@epa.gov, 202–564–

4355, Office of Public Affairs. Details 

and additional information will also be 

posted on EPA’s TRI Web site, http:// 

www.epa.gov/tri, as they become 

available. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In the 

coming months, the Agency will give 

consideration to additional measures 

that would provide burden relief to TRI 

reporting facilities on an every other 

year basis. These options may include a 

modification in reporting frequency as 

discussed in EPCRA section 313(i). 42 

U.S.C. 11023(i). In order to modify TRI 

reporting frequency, section 313(i) of 

EPCRA requires EPA to make a finding 

that modifying the reporting frequency 

is consistent with the purposes of the 

TRI as listed in section 313(h) of 

EPCRA. See, 42 U.S.C. 11023(h). This 

finding must be based on previous 

experience gained from past TRI 

reporting, the extent to which the public 

has used TRI data, the extent to which 

information is readily available from 

other sources and the extent to which 

the change would impose additional 

and unreasonable burdens on reporting 

facilities. 42 U.S.C. 11023(i)(2)–(3). As 

outlined in EPCRA, the Agency must 

first notify Congress of its intent to 

initiate a rulemaking to modify the 

reporting frequency. After notifying 

Congress, EPA must delay initiating the 

rulemaking for 12 months but no more 

than 24 months. In following the 

process described in EPCRA to make 

such a change, the Agency recently 

notified Congress of its intent to initiate 

a rulemaking to modify the reporting 

frequency. EPA’s Assistant 

Administrator Kimberly T. Nelson 

mailed the letter below to the following 

individuals: The Honorable Richard B. 

Cheney, President, United States Senate, 

The Honorable William H. Frist, 

Majority Leader, United States Senate, 

The Honorable Harry Reid, Minority 

Leader, United States Senate, The 

Honorable J. Dennis Hastert, Speaker, 

United States House of Representatives, 

The Honorable Tom DeLay, Majority 

Leader, United States House of 

Representatives, The Honorable Nancy 

Pelosi, Minority Leader, United States 

House of Representatives, and The 

Honorable David M. Walker, 

Comptroller General of the United 

States, Government Accountability 

Office. 

Since the late 1980s, the United States 

(U.S.) Environmental Protection Agency 

(EPA) Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) 

program has been an important source 

of public information on releases of 

toxic chemicals and a successful tool in 

our efforts at promoting pollution 

prevention. Under Section 313 of the 

Emergency Planning and Community 

Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) of 1986, 

facilities annually report data to EPA on 

releases and transfers of certain listed 

toxic chemicals, which EPA compiles 

and makes available to the public. The 

Pollution Prevention Act (PPA) of 1990 

57872 Federal Register / Vol. 70, No. 191 / Tuesday, October 4, 2005 / Notices 

expanded the program to include 

information on other waste management 

activities such as recycling of chemicals. 

In addition, EPA has several times 

expanded the scope of the program by 

rulemaking by doubling the number of 

covered chemicals, adding seven 

industrial sectors, and significantly 

lowering reporting thresholds for 

chemicals identified as persistent, 

bioaccumlative and toxic (PBT). EPA 

believes that each of these expansions 

has increased the usefulness of the TRI 

data to the public and furthered the 

statutory goals of the program. 

Over the years, EPA has been mindful 

of the reporting burden this program 

imposes on covered facilities. In 1994, 

EPA introduced ‘‘Form A’’ to streamline 

reporting for small dischargers. In July 

of this year, we finalized a rule that 

would revise the TRI reporting forms to 

eliminate information not used, simplify 

reporting codes and improve the 

accuracy of facility identification and 

location data by using the data already 

available in EPA’s information systems. 

In addition, EPA will soon publish a 

proposed rule to expand the use of Form 

A to allow more facilities to use the 

short form while retaining the full Form 

R reporting on over 99% of releases and 

other waste management activities. Both 

of these efforts involved extensive 

consultations with all program 

stakeholders and help address the 

concerns expressed about the reporting 

burden under TRI. 

The purpose of this letter is to inform 

you of the third and final phase of our 

current efforts to reduce burden and 

streamline program operations. 

Specifically, we believe a rulemaking to 

modify the reporting frequency from 

annual to biennial deserves further 

consideration. Not only would alternate 

year reporting result in significant 

burden reduction for covered facilities, 

citizens would benefit from the 

redirection of federal and state taxpayer 

dollars to improve the quality, clarity, 

usefulness and accessibility of TRI 

information products and services. 

EPCRA Sec 313(i) authorizes EPA to 

make such a modification, but only after 

providing at least one-year’s advance 

notification to Congress before initiating 

a rulemaking and only after making 

several specific findings, which we 

address below. Accordingly, we are 

notifying you that we plan to initiate a 

rulemaking to consider modifications to 

the reporting frequency for the TRI 

program within 12 to 24 months after 

the date of this letter. Over the next 12 

months, EPA plans to continue its 

consultations with stakeholders in order 

to gather the data necessary to support 

the statutory determinations required 

under the law and to ensure the 

rulemaking appropriately balances the 

needs of data users with the concerns of 

data reporters and states. 

We are taking this step because we 

believe that alternate year reporting not 

only offers burden reduction, but also 

offers other potential advantages that 

merit consideration. First, EPA and 

states would be able to use the saved 

resources from the non-reporting years 

to improve the TRI database and 

conduct additional analyses that would 

enhance the value of the data to the 

public. For example, EPA could 

enhance its TRI reporting software, TRIMade Easy, thereby improving data 

quality and consistency; conduct 

analyses of data trends, sector or 

chemical specific patterns of waste 

management, innovations in pollution 

prevention, and risk implications of 

toxic chemical releases thereby making 

the TRI data more useful to citizens, 

communities, researchers and 

government agencies; and improve its 

web-based software to make the data 

more accessible and user friendly and to 

improve opportunities for Internetbased reporting. Internet reporting 

provides savings not only to reporters, 

but also to taxpayers as it reduces EPA 

and State processing costs and allows us 

to meet Paperwork Reduction and 

Electronic Government requirements. It 

also provides greater confidence to both 

reporters and data users in the integrity 

of the data by increasing the use of 

electronic data quality checks. 

Alternate year reporting would 

provide more simplified burden 

reduction to TRI reporters than many 

options previously considered. For 

instance, a common complaint about 

Form A is that it requires a significant 

amount of time to track and calculate 

data to determine eligibility. Alternate 

year reporting, in contrast, would 

eliminate in non-reporting years all 

burden for eligible reporters. Although 

EPA believes that a carefully structured 

alternate year reporting provision could 

provide substantial benefits to both data 

users and data reporters, EPA also 

recognizes that there will be legitimate 

concerns about data loss during the nonreporting years and will carefully 

consider those concerns as we develop 

any proposals for public comment and 

consideration. 

EPA will be examining the impact on 

data users carefully as it addresses the 

statutory requirements for modifying 

reporting frequency. Specifically, 

EPCRA requires one finding and three 

determinations before changing the 

reporting frequency. The required 

finding is that any modification is 

consistent with the intended uses of the 

TRI data as described in Sec 313(h), 

while the determinations are designed 

to ensure that EPA give full 

consideration to: (1) The impact of the 

modifications on data users, including 

State and local governments, health 

professionals, the general public, other 

federal agencies and EPA itself; (2) the 

availability of the data from other 

sources; and (3) the impact of the 

modifications on data reporters. EPA 

intends to gather data related to these 

issues during the next 12 months, prior 

to initiating a rulemaking. 

EPA believes that this action will 

enhance data quality and user 

friendliness by supplementing existing 

data with additional analysis. EPA looks 

forward to working with all 

stakeholders in the coming year to 

gather the necessary information to 

ensure that any modification of TRI 

reporting frequency considers the needs 

of TRI data users and will consider a 

range of options to minimize impacts. 

Enclosed for your benefit is a fact 

sheet with more details about the TRI 

program. Should you have any 

questions or would like to provide your 

views, please contact me at 202–564–

6665 or your staff may contact James 

Blizzard in EPA’s Office of 

Congressional and Intergovernmental 

Relations. 

Dated: September 21, 2005. 

Kimberly T. Nelson, 

Assistant Administrator for Office of 

Environmental Information and, Chief 

Information Officer. 

[FR Doc. 05–19709 Filed 10–3–05; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6560–50–P 

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION 

AGENCY 

[OPPT–2004–0096; FRL–7731–3] 

Asbestos-Containing Materials in 

Schools; State Request for Waiver 

from Requirements; Notice of Final 

Decision 

AGENCY: Environmental Protection 

Agency (EPA). 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: EPA is issuing a final decision 

which approves the request from Illinois 

for a waiver from the Agency’s asbestosin-schools program. A waiver of these 

requirements is granted since EPA has 

determined, after notice and comment 

and opportunity for a public hearing, 

that Illinois is implementing or intends 

to implement a program of asbestos 

inspection and management for schools 

that is at least as stringent as EPA’s 

program. This notice announces the 

official grant of the waiver.