Lead Wheel Weights; Regulatory Investigation Under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 751</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OPPT-2024-0085; FRL-5398-05-OCSPP]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2070-AJ64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Lead Wheel Weights; Regulatory Investigation Under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) is requesting comments and information to assist in the potential development of regulations for the manufacture (including importing), processing (including recycling), and distribution in commerce of lead for wheel-balancing weights (“lead wheel weights”) under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). To inform this consideration, EPA is requesting comment and information from all stakeholders on the use and exposure to lead from the manufacture (including importing), processing (including recycling), distribution in commerce, use, and disposal of lead wheel weights, as well as information on their substitutes, to help determine if there is unreasonable risk to human health and the environment associated with this use. This action is relevant to a petition for a writ of mandamus filed in August 2023, by the Ecology Center, Center for Environmental Health, United Parents Against Lead & Other Environmental Hazards, and Sierra Club in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit requesting the court to direct EPA to conduct a rulemaking regulating lead wheel weights under TSCA. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before May 3, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by docket identification (ID) number EPA-HQ-OPPT-2024-0085, through <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. Do not submit electronically any information you consider to be Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Additional instructions on commenting and visiting the docket, along with more information about dockets generally, is available at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/</E> dockets. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> <E T="03">Technical information contact:</E> Sofie Sonner, Existing Chemicals Risk Management Division (7404M), Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20460-0001; telephone number: (202) 565-2414; email address: <E T="03">sonner.sofie@epa.gov.</E> <E T="03">General information contact:</E> The TSCA Hotline, ABVI-Goodwill, 422 South Clinton Ave., Rochester, NY 14620; 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 manufacture (including import), process (including recycling), distribute in commerce, dispose of, or use lead wheel weights, or their substitutes. 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: • Lead Ore and Zinc Ore Mining (NAICS code 212231); • Primary Smelting and Refining of Nonferrous Metal (except Copper and Aluminum) (NAICS code 331419); • Secondary Smelting, Refining, and Alloying of Nonferrous Metal (except Copper and Aluminum) (NAICS code 331492); • Lead die-castings, unfinished, manufacturing (NAICS code 331523); • Automobile Manufacturing (NAICS code 336111); • Light Truck and Utility Vehicle Manufacturing (NAICS code 336112); • Heavy Duty Truck Manufacturing (NAICS code 336120); • All Other Motor Vehicles Parts Manufacturing (NAICS code 336399); • Motorcycle, Bicycle, and Parts Manufacturing (NAICS code 336991); • Automobile and Other Motor Vehicle Merchant Wholesalers (NAICS code 423110); • Motor Vehicle Supplies and New Parts Merchant Wholesalers (NAICS code 423120); • Tire and Tube Merchant Wholesalers (NAICS code 423130); • Motor Vehicle Parts (Used) Merchant Wholesalers (NAICS code 423140); • New Car Dealers (NAICS code 441110); • Used Car Dealers (NAICS code 441120); • Recreational Vehicle Dealers (NAICS code 441210); • Motorcycle, Boat, and Other Motor Vehicle Dealers (NAICS code 441220); • Automotive Parts and Accessories Stores (NAICS code 441310); • Tire Dealers (NAICS code 441320); • General Automotive Repair (NAICS code 811111); • Other Automotive Mechanical and Electrical Repair and Maintenance (NAICS code 811118); • Automotive Oil Change and Lubrication Shops (NAICS code 811191); and • All Other Automotive Repair and Maintenance (NAICS code 811198). If you have any questions regarding the applicability of this action, please consult the technical information contact 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> This action is being taken under the Toxic Substances Control Act, 15 U.S.C. 2601 <E T="03">et seq.</E> TSCA section 21 allows citizens to petition EPA to initiate a rulemaking proceeding for the issuance, amendment, or repeal of a rule under TSCA sections 4, 6, or 8 or an order under TSCA sections 4 or 5(e) through (f). If EPA grants such a petition, the Agency must promptly commence an appropriate proceeding. Under TSCA section 6(a), if EPA determines that the manufacture, processing, distribution in commerce, use, or disposal of a chemical substance presents an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment, it must “apply one or more of the [TSCA section 6(a)] requirements . . . to the extent necessary so that the chemical substance . . . no longer presents such risk,” which may range from prohibiting or otherwise restricting the manufacturing, processing, or distribution in commerce of the chemical substance (or a particular use), to commercial use requirements or disposal restrictions, to labeling and recordkeeping. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. What action is the Agency taking?</HD> Through this ANPRM, EPA is seeking comment and information on specific issues regarding potential exposure to lead during manufacturing, processing (including recycling), distribution in commerce, use, or disposal of lead wheel weights, as well as information on substitutes for lead wheel weights. This information will help inform the Agency's determinations regarding potential unreasonable risk to human health and the environment from exposure to lead wheel weights. If unreasonable risk is determined, EPA will initiate a proposed rulemaking under TSCA section 6(a) to address the unreasonable risk. <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. What are the incremental costs and benefits of this action?</HD> This action does not impose or propose any requirements, and instead seeks comments and suggestions that will help the Agency identify whether and to what extent there is a potential need for a TSCA section 6 rule and/or other administrative action. If EPA decides to propose a rule, it will conduct the appropriate assessments of the costs and benefits of those changes and provide opportunities for public comment. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E. What should I consider as I prepare my comments for EPA?</HD> 1. <E T="03">Submitting CBI.</E> Do not submit CBI to EPA through <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> or email. If you wish to include CBI in your comment, please follow the applicable instructions at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets#rules</E> and clearly mark the information that you claim to be CBI. Information so marked will not be disclosed except in accordance with procedures set forth in 40 CFR parts 2 and 703. 2. <E T="03">Tips for preparing your comments.</E> When preparing and submitting your comments, see the commenting tips at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.html.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. 2009 TSCA Section 21 Petition</HD> In May 2009, Sierra Club, Ecology Center, and several other non-governmental organizations submitted a TSCA section 21 petition requesting EPA “to establish regulations prohibiting the manufacture, processing, and distribution in commerce of lead wheel balancing weights (`wheel weights')” (Ref. 1). Petitioners raised concerns that lead wheel weights result in pervasive lead exposure to children. EPA acknowledged receipt and requested public comment on the petition on July 15, 2009 (74 FR 34342 (FRL-8424-7)). EPA granted the petition on August 26, 2009 (Ref. 2). EPA has not issued any regulatory action relating to this petition since granting the petition. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. 2023 Writ of Mandamus</HD> In August 2023, Ecology Center, Center for Environmental Health, United Parents Against Lead & Other Environmental Hazards, and Sierra Club sought a writ of mandamus in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and asked the court to direct EPA to conduct a rulemaking regulating lead wheel weights under TSCA section 6. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. What are lead wheel weights?</HD> Wheel weights are small pieces of metal or other material used to correct imbalances in the weight distribution of motor vehicle tires. Lead has historically been a primary component of many wheel weights because of its malleability, high density, and relatively low cost. These wheel weights can separate from the wheel due to failure of the adhesive or clip attaching them, or due to impact of the wheel with a pothole or road debris ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 20k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━