Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Requirements for Polymer Exemption Reports and Accompanying Claims; Extension of the Reporting Deadline for 2024

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 723</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OPPT-2021-0419; FRL-11729-01-OCSPP]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2070-AK68</RIN> <SUBJECT>Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Requirements for Polymer Exemption Reports and Accompanying Claims; Extension of the Reporting Deadline for 2024</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is amending the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) regulations for polymers manufactured under the terms of the polymer exemption by extending the submission deadline for reporting. The regulations require that manufacturers (includes importers) of polymers manufactured under the terms of the exemption submit a report of manufacture or import by January 31 of the year subsequent to initial manufacture. On June 7, 2023, EPA amended the exemption reporting requirement to require that the exemption report and accompanying confidentiality claims be submitted electronically. Because EPA experienced technical difficulties with the launch of the new electronic reporting tool, EPA is extending the reporting period for 2024 from January 31 to March 31 to allow manufacturers additional time to submit their reports and accompanying claims to EPA using the electronic reporting tool. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on February 16, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The docket for this action, identified by docket identification (ID) number EPA-HQ-OPPT-2021-0419, is available online at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> . Additional information about dockets generally, along with instructions for visiting the docket in-person, is available at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/dockets</E> . <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD>   <E T="03">For technical information contact:</E> Loraine Passe, New Chemicals Division (7405M), Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20460-0001; telephone number: (202) 564-9064; email address: <E T="03">passe.loraine@epa.gov</E> . <E T="03">For general information contact:</E> The TSCA-Hotline, ABVI-Goodwill, 422 South Clinton Ave., Rochester, NY 14620; telephone number: (202) 554-1404; email address: <E T="03">TSCA-Hotline@epa.gov</E> . </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Does this action apply to me?</HD> You may be potentially affected by this action if you were a manufacturer or importer of a polymer under the terms of the polymer exemption in 2023. The following list of North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) codes is not intended to be exhaustive but rather provides a guide to help readers determine whether this document applies to them. Potentially affected entities may include: • Chemical Manufacturers (NAICS code 325). • Petroleum and Coal Products (NAICS code 324). • Merchant Wholesalers, Nondurable Goods (NAICS code 424). This list details the types of entities that EPA is aware could potentially be regulated by this action. Other types of entities not listed could also be regulated. To determine whether your entity is regulated by this action, you should carefully examine the applicability criteria found in 40 CFR 723.250. If you have questions regarding the applicability of this action, please consult the technical person listed under <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> . <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. What is the Agency's authority for taking this action?</HD> EPA is promulgating this rule pursuant to its authority in TSCA section 5 (15 U.S.C. 2604). In addition, section 553(b)(B) of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(B), provides that an agency may issue a final rule without a prior proposal if it finds for good cause that notice and public procedure are impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. What action is the Agency taking?</HD> EPA is extending the reporting deadline for polymer exemption reports under 40 CFR 723.250 for this year for exemption reports and accompanying claims from January 31 to March 31. EPA believes this extension will provide reporters with sufficient time to submit information using the electronic reporting tool and for EPA to fix any unanticipated glitches that may arise with the use of the new tool. <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. Why is this issued as a final rule?</HD> Pursuant to section 553(b)(B) of the APA (5 U.S.C. 553(b)(B)), EPA has determined that there is good cause for extending the reporting deadline for 2024 without prior proposal and opportunity for comment. EPA encountered technical issues when launching a new polymer exemption electronic reporting tool and the time to fix those issues took longer than expected. As a result, it was not possible for manufacturers to submit their required reports and accompanying claims electronically until January 29, 2024, three business days before the January 31st regulatory due date for 2024. EPA determines that there is good cause to take this action without a prior proposal because it would be contrary to the public interest to retain the deadline of January 31 for the 2024 reports, where EPA's electronic systems were not ready and available for use by regulated entities to allow them to comply with the electronic reporting requirements of the rule before the submission deadline of January 31, 2024. Moreover, EPA previously provided notice that if technical issues with electronic reporting of polymer exemption reports occurred, it would make appropriate accommodations such as extending reporting deadlines. The issue was discussed in the preamble to the final rule establishing the electronic reporting deadline in question (88 FR 37155, June 7, 2023 (FRL-8223-02-OCSPP)), which became effective on August 7, 2023, and required the use of a new electronic reporting tool for submitting annual polymer exemption reports and accompanying claims. That rule amended the regulations in 40 CFR 723.250(f) to state, “. . . The report and accompanying claims must be submitted via CDX ( <E T="03">https://cdx.epa.gov/</E> ), using the TSCA Section 5 Notices and Supports—ePMN application.” In that rule, EPA responded to several commenters that expressed concern over reliance on electronic reporting, citing past incidences of technical difficulties with providing electronic submissions via CDX. Specifically, EPA responded in that final rule that it did not expect issues with electronic reporting of polymer exemption reports, but if such issues did occur the Agency would continue its practice of promptly addressing problems and, “. . . making appropriate accommodations (such as extending reporting deadlines)” (88 FR 37155, June 7, 2023 (FRL-8223-02-OCSPP)). EPA did not anticipate the technical issues it had with launching the tool and expected the new reporting tool to be fully functional well ahead of the January 31st reporting deadline. Unfortunately, the tool only became functional three business days before the January 31, 2024, deadline. As EPA had already acknowledged that it could extend reporting deadlines if technical issues with the reporting tool arose, providing further notice and public procedure would serve no purpose and is unnecessary. APA section 553(d) (5 U.S.C. 553(d)), in turn, allows an agency to make a rule immediately effective “for good cause found and published with the rule.” For the reasons discussed in this unit, EPA believes that there is good cause to make this amendment to codify the extension to the 2024 reporting deadline effective upon publication in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . Extending the reporting deadline for 2024 is beneficial to regulated entities that need to comply with the regulations because it provides them with more time to complete the submission using the new electronic reporting tool. This final rule has no adverse impact and does not otherwise alter the reporting and recordkeeping requirements contained in the rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</HD> Additional information about these statutes and Executive orders can be found at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/laws-and-executive-orders#influence</E> . <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Executive Order 12866: Regulatory Planning and Review and Executive Order 13563: Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review</HD> This action is not a significant regulatory action and was therefore not submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review under Executive Orders 12866 (58 FR 51735, October 4, 1993) and 13563 (76 FR 3821, January 21, 2011). <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA)</HD> This action does not contain any new information collection burden under the PRA, 44 U.S.C. 3501 <E T="03">et seq.</E> OMB has previously approved the information collection activities contained in the existing new chemical regulations under OMB Control No. 2070-0038 (EPA ICR No. 1188.14), which was updated with the CBI revisions and electronic submission approved under OMB Control No. 2070-0223 (EPA ICR No. 2707.02). This action only delays the reporting deadline for 2024 and does not otherwise change any of the information collection activities. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA)</HD> This action is not subject to the RFA, 5 U.S.C. 601 <E T="03">et seq.</E> The RFA applies only to rules subject to notice and comment rulemaking requirements under the APA, 5 U.S.C. 553, or any other statute. This final rule action is not subject to notice and comment requirements under the APA because the Agenc ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 15k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━