Methylene Chloride; Regulation Under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 751</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OPPT-2020-0465; FRL-8155-01-OCSPP]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2070-AK70</RIN> <SUBJECT>Methylene Chloride; Regulation Under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)</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 or the Agency) is finalizing a rule to address the unreasonable risk of injury to health presented by methylene chloride under its conditions of use. TSCA requires that EPA address by rule any unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment identified in a TSCA risk evaluation and apply requirements to the extent necessary so that the chemical no longer presents unreasonable risk. EPA's final rule will, among other things, prevent serious illness and death associated with uncontrolled exposures to the chemical by preventing consumer access to the chemical, restricting the industrial and commercial use of the chemical while also allowing for a reasonable transition period where an industrial and commercial use of the chemical is being prohibited, provide a time-limited exemption for a critical or essential use of methylene chloride for which no technically and economically feasible safer alternative is available, and protect workers from the unreasonable risk of methylene chloride while on the job. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on July 8, 2024. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OPPT-2020-0465. All documents in the docket are listed on the <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> website. Although listed in the index, some information is not publicly available, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such as copyrighted material, is not placed on the internet and will be publicly available only in hard copy form. Publicly available docket materials are available electronically through <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> <E T="03">For technical information contact:</E> Ingrid Feustel, Existing Chemicals Risk Management Division (7405M), Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20460-0001; telephone number: (202) 564-3199; email address: <E T="03">MethyleneChlorideTSCA@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 rule if you manufacture (defined under TSCA to include import), process, distribute in commerce, use, or dispose of methylene chloride or products containing methylene chloride. TSCA section 3(9) defines the term “manufacture” to mean to import into the customs territory of the United States (as defined in general note 2 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States), produce, or manufacture. Therefore, unless expressly stated otherwise, importers of methylene chloride are subject to any provisions regulating manufacture of methylene chloride. 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 include: • Other Chemical and Allied Products Merchant Wholesalers (NAICS code 424690); • Crude Petroleum Extraction (NAICS code 211120); • All Other Basic Organic Chemical Manufacturing (NAICS code 325199); • Other Chemical and Allied Products Merchant Wholesalers (NAICS code 424690); • Petroleum Bulk Stations and Terminals (NAICS code 424710); • Other Basic Inorganic Chemical Manufacturing (NAICS code 325180); • Testing Laboratories (NAICS code 541380); • Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Nanotechnology and Biotechnology (NAICS code 541715); • Hazardous Waste Treatment and Disposal (NAICS code 562211); • Solid Waste Combustors and Incinerators (NAICS code 562213); • Materials Recovery Facilities (NAICS code 562920); • Paint and Coating Manufacturing (NAICS code 325510); • Air and Gas Compressor Manufacturing (NAICS code 333912); • Gasket, Packing, and Sealing Device Manufacturing (NAICS code 339991); • Residential Remodelers (NAICS code 236118); • Commercial and Institutional Building Construction (NAICS code 236220); • Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors (NAICS code 238220); • Painting and Wall Covering Contractors (NAICS code 238320); • All Other Miscellaneous Manufacturing (NAICS code 339999); • Automotive Parts and Accessories Stores (NAICS code 441310); • All Other Miscellaneous Store Retailers (except Tobacco Stores) (NAICS code 453998); • Other Support Activities for Air Transportation (NAICS code 488190); • All Other Automotive Repair and Maintenance (NAICS code 811198); • Commercial and Industrial Machinery and Equipment (except Automotive and Electronic) Repair and Maintenance (NAICS code 811310); • Footwear and Leather Goods Repair (NAICS code 811430); • Adhesive Manufacturing (NAICS code 325520); • All Other Miscellaneous Chemical Product and Preparation Manufacturing (NAICS code 325998); • Audio and Video Equipment Manufacturing (NAICS code 334310); • Reupholstery and Furniture Repair (NAICS code 811420); • All Other Rubber Product Manufacturing (NAICS code 326299); • All Other Miscellaneous Textile Product Mills (NAICS code 314999); • All Other Miscellaneous Fabricated Metal Product Manufacturing (NAICS code 332999); • Oil and Gas Field Machinery and Equipment Manufacturing (NAICS code 333132); • Bare Printed Circuit Board Manufacturing (NAICS code 334412); • Other Electronic Component Manufacturing (NAICS code 334419); • All Other Miscellaneous Electrical Equipment and Component Manufacturing (NAICS code 335999); • Printing Machinery and Equipment Manufacturing (NAICS code 333244); • Petroleum Refineries (NAICS code 324110); • Petroleum Lubricating Oil and Grease Manufacturing (NAICS code 324191); • Painting and Wall Covering Contractors (NAICS code 238320); • Welding and Soldering Equipment Manufacturing (NAICS code 333992); • New Car Dealers (NAICS code 441110); • Used Car Dealers (NAICS code 441120); • Drycleaning and Laundry Services (except Coin-Operated) (NAICS code 812320); and • Doll, Toy, and Game Manufacturing (NAICS code 339930). This action may also affect certain entities through pre-existing import, including import certification, and export notification rules under TSCA. Persons who import any chemical substance in bulk form, as part of a mixture, or as part of an article (if required by rule) are also subject to TSCA section 13 import certification requirements and the corresponding regulations at 19 CFR 12.118 through 12.127; see also 19 CFR 127.28. Those persons must certify that the shipment of the chemical substance complies with all applicable rules and orders under TSCA. The EPA policy in support of import certification appears at 40 CFR part 707, subpart B. In addition, any persons who export or intend to export a chemical substance that is the subject of this final rule are subject to the export notification provisions of TSCA section 12(b) (15 U.S.C. 2611(b)), and must comply with the export notification requirements in 40 CFR part 707, subpart D. Any person who exports or intends to export methylene chloride must comply with the export notification requirements in 40 CFR part 707, subpart D. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. What is the Agency's authority for taking this action?</HD> Under TSCA section 6(a) (15 U.S.C. 2605(a)), if EPA determines through a TSCA section 6(b) risk evaluation that a chemical substance presents an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment, EPA must by rule apply one or more requirements listed in TSCA section 6(a) to the extent necessary so that the chemical substance or mixture no longer presents such risk. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. What action is the Agency taking?</HD> Pursuant to TSCA section 6(b), EPA determined that methylene chloride presents an unreasonable risk of injury to health, without consideration of costs or other non-risk factors, including an unreasonable risk to potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulations identified as relevant to the 2020 Risk Evaluation for Methylene Chloride by EPA, under the conditions of use (Refs. 1, 2). A detailed description of the conditions of use that contribute to EPA's determination that methylene chloride presents an unreasonable risk is in Unit II.C.4. Accordingly, to address the unreasonable risk, EPA is issuing this final rule under TSCA section 6(a) to: (i) Prohibit the manufacture, processing, and distribution of methylene chloride for all consumer use, as outlined in Unit IV.C.; (ii) Prohibit most industrial and commercial use of methylene chloride and delay prohibition for two conditions of use, as outlined in Unit IV.C.; (iii) Require a workplace chemical protection program (WCPP), including inhalation exposure concentration limits and related workplace exposure monitoring and exposure controls, for 13 conditions of use of methylene chloride (including manufacture; processing; several industrial and commercial uses such as laboratory use; and disposal), as o ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 363k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━