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Final Rule

Rhode Island: Final Authorization of State Hazardous Waste Management Program; Revisions and Corrections

In Plain English

What is this Federal Register notice?

This is a final rule published in the Federal Register by Environmental Protection Agency. Final rules have completed the public comment process and establish legally binding requirements.

Is this rule final?

Yes. This rule has been finalized. It has completed the notice-and-comment process required under the Administrative Procedure Act.

Who does this apply to?

Consult the full text of this document for specific applicability provisions. The affected parties depend on the regulatory scope defined within.

When does it take effect?

This document has been effective since October 28, 2024.

Why it matters: This final rule amends regulations in 40 CFR Part 271.

Document Details

Document Number2024-19036
TypeFinal Rule
PublishedAug 29, 2024
Effective DateOct 28, 2024
RIN-
Docket IDEPA-R01-RCRA-2023-0612
Text FetchedYes

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Related Documents (by RIN/Docket)

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2024-19035 Proposed Rule Rhode Island: Final Authorization of Sta... Aug 29, 2024

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Full Document Text (5,708 words · ~29 min read)

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<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 271</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R01-RCRA-2023-0612; FRL 11619-02-R1]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Rhode Island: Final Authorization of State Hazardous Waste Management Program; Revisions and Corrections</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final action. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The State of Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RIDEM) has applied to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for final authorization of revisions to its hazardous waste program under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), as amended. The EPA has reviewed Rhode Island's application and has determined that Rhode Island's hazardous waste program revision satisfies all of the requirements necessary to qualify for final authorization. Additionally, this document corrects errors made in the State authorization citations published in the March 12, 1990, March 5, 1992, October 2, 1992, and August 9, 2002 <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . The EPA is authorizing the State program revisions through this final action. In the “Proposed Rules” section of this <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , the EPA is also publishing a separate document that serves as the proposal to authorize these revisions. Unless the EPA receives written comments that oppose this authorization during the comment period, the decision to authorize Rhode Island's revisions to its hazardous waste program will take effect. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final authorization is effective on October 28, 2024, unless the EPA receives adverse written comment by September 30, 2024. Should the EPA receive such comments, it will publish a timely document either: withdrawing the final action or affirming the publication and responding to comments. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R01-RCRA-2023-0612, at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/.</E> Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. Once submitted, comments cannot be edited or removed from <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> The EPA may publish any comment received to its public docket. Do not submit electronically any information you consider to be Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Multimedia submissions (audio, video, etc.) must be accompanied by a written comment. The written comment is considered the official comment and should include discussion of all points you wish to make. The EPA will generally not consider comments or comment contents located outside of the primary submission ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> on the web, cloud, or other file sharing system). For additional submission methods, the full EPA public comment policy, information about CBI or multimedia submissions, and general guidance on making effective comments, please visit <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Liz McCarthy or Joe Hayes, RCRA Waste Management and Lead Branch; Land, Chemicals, and Redevelopment Division; U.S. EPA Region 1, 5 Post Office Square, Suite 100 (Mail code 07-1), Boston, MA 02109-3912; phone: (617) 918-1447 or (617) 918-1362; email: <E T="03">mccarthy.liz@epa.gov or Hayes.Joseph@epa.gov</E> . </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED"> SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: </HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Authorization of Revisions to Rhode Island's Hazardous Waste Program</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Why are revisions to State programs necessary?</HD> States that have received final authorization from the EPA under RCRA section 3006(b), 42 U.S.C. 6926(b), must maintain a hazardous waste program that is equivalent to, consistent with, and no less stringent than the Federal program. As the Federal program changes, States must change their programs and ask the EPA to authorize the changes. Changes to State programs may be necessary when Federal or State statutory or regulatory authority is modified or when certain other changes occur. Most commonly, States must change their programs because of changes to the EPA's regulations in 40 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) parts 124, 260 through 268, 270, 273, and 279. New Federal requirements and prohibitions imposed by Federal regulations that the EPA promulgates pursuant to the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984 (HSWA) take effect in authorized States at the same time that they take effect in unauthorized States. Thus, the EPA will implement those requirements and prohibitions in Rhode Island, including the issuance of new permits implementing those requirements, until the State is granted authorization to do so. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. What decisions has the EPA made in this final action?</HD> On September 12, 2023, Rhode Island submitted a complete program revision application seeking authorization of revisions to its hazardous waste program. The EPA concludes that Rhode Island's application to revise its authorized program meets all of the statutory and regulatory requirements established by RCRA, as set forth in RCRA section 3006(b), 42 U.S.C. 6926(b), and 40 CFR part 271. Therefore, the EPA grants final authorization to Rhode Island to operate its hazardous waste program with the revisions described in its authorization application, and as listed below in section G of this document. The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RI DEM) has responsibility for permitting treatment, storage, and disposal facilities within its borders and for carrying out the aspects of the RCRA program described in its application, subject to the limitations of HSWA, as discussed above. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. What is the effect of this authorization decision?</HD> If the State of Rhode Island is authorized for these changes, a facility in Rhode Island subject to RCRA will now have to comply with the authorized State requirements instead of the equivalent Federal requirements in order to comply with RCRA. Additionally, such facilities will have to comply with any applicable Federal requirements such as, for example, HSWA regulations issued by the EPA for which the State has not received authorization. The State of Rhode Island will continue to have primary enforcement authority and responsibility for its State hazardous waste program. The EPA would maintain its authorities under RCRA sections 3007, 3008, 3013, and 7003, including its authority to: • Conduct inspections and require monitoring, tests, analyses or reports; • Enforce RCRA requirements, including authorized State program requirements, and suspend or revoke permits; and • Take enforcement actions regardless of whether the State has taken its own actions. This action to approve these provisions will not impose additional requirements on the regulated community because the regulations for which the State of Rhode Island is requesting authorization are already effective under State law and are not changed by the act of authorization. <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. Why is the EPA using a final action?</HD> The EPA is publishing this action without prior proposal because the EPA views this as a noncontroversial action and anticipates no adverse comment. However, in the “Proposed Rules” section of this <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , we are publishing a separate document that will serve as the proposed action allowing the public an opportunity to comment. We will not institute a second comment period on this action. Any parties interested in commenting must do so at this time. For further information about commenting on this action, see the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section of this document. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E. What happens if the EPA receives comments opposing this action?</HD> If the EPA receives comments that oppose this authorization, we will publish a timely withdrawal in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> informing the public that this final action will not take effect. We will address all public comments in a later <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . You will not have another opportunity to comment. If you want to comment on this action, you must do so at this time. <HD SOURCE="HD2">F. What has Rhode Island previously been authorized for?</HD> Rhode Island initially received final Authorization on January 30, 1986, effective January 31, 1986 (51 FR 3780) to implement its base hazardous waste management program. The EPA granted authorization for revisions to Rhode Island's regulatory program on the following dates: March 12, 1990, effective March 26, 1990 (55 FR 9128); March 6, 1992, effective May 5, 1992 (57 FR 8089); October 2, 1992, effective December 1, 1992 (57 FR 45574); August 9, 2002, effective October 8, 2002 (67 FR 51765); December 11, 2007, effective February 11, 2008 (72 FR 70229); and July 26, 2010, effective September 24, 2010 (75 FR 43409). Additionally, on July 26, 2010 (75 FR 43478), the EPA granted Rhode Island final authorization to operate its hazardous waste program with the changes relating to the Zinc Fertilizer Rule and Burden Reduction Initiative which became effective on September 24, 2010 (75 FR 57188). <HD SOURCE="HD2">G. What changes is the EPA authorizing with this action?</HD> On June 25, 2024, Rhode Island submitted a final complete program revision application, seeking authorization of additional revisions to its program in accordance with 40 CFR 271.21. We now make a final decision, subject to receipt of written comments that oppose this action, that Rhode Island's hazardous waste program satisfies all of the requirements necessary to qualify for final authorization. The RIDEM revisions consist of regulations which specifically govern Federal hazardous waste revisions promulgated between July 1, 2008, through June 30, 2013 (R ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 40k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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