Addition of Certain Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI)

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 372</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OPPT-2023-0538; FRL-9313-01-OCSPP]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2070-AL03</RIN> <SUBJECT>Addition of Certain Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI)</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to add 16 individually listed per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and 15 PFAS categories to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) list of toxic chemicals subject to reporting under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) and the Pollution Prevention Act (PPA) to comply with the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 (NDAA). EPA also addresses how PFAS categories should be treated. Separately, EPA discusses what events may trigger the automatic addition of a PFAS to the TRI pursuant to the NDAA. This discussion does not propose to list chemicals to TRI pursuant to the NDAA, but rather describes what EPA documents and activities involving PFAS would trigger an automatic addition under the NDAA. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before December 9, 2024. Comments on the information collection provisions submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) are best assured of consideration by OMB if OMB receives a copy of your comments on or before November 7, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by docket identification (ID) number EPA-HQ-OPPT-2023-0538, 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 or visiting the docket, along with more information about dockets generally, 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> Rachel Dean, Data Gathering, Analysis, Management, and Policy Division, Mailcode 7406M, Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20460-0001; telephone number: (202) 566-1303; email address: <E T="03">dean.rachel@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, process, or otherwise use any of the PFAS listed in this rule. The following list of North American Industry 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: • Facilities included in the following NAICS manufacturing codes (corresponding to Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes 20 through 39): 311*, 312*, 313*, 314*, 315*, 316, 321, 322, 323*, 324, 325*, 326*, 327*, 331, 332, 333, 334*, 335*, 336, 337*, 339*, 111998*, 211130*, 212323*, 212390*, 488390*, 5131*, 512230*, 512250*, 516210*, 519290*, 541713*, 541715* or 811490*. * Exceptions and/or limitations exist for these NAICS codes. • Facilities included in the following NAICS codes (corresponding to SIC codes other than SIC codes 20 through 39): 212114, 212115, or 212220, 212230, 212290*; or 2211*, 221210*, 221330 (limited to facilities that combust coal and/or oil for the purpose of generating power for distribution in commerce) (corresponds to SIC codes 4911, 4931, and 4939, Electric Utilities); or 424690, 424710 (corresponds to SIC code 5171, Petroleum Bulk Terminals and Plants); 425120 (limited to facilities previously classified in SIC code 5169, Chemicals and Allied Products, Not Elsewhere Classified); or 562112 (limited to facilities primarily engaged in solvent recovery services on a contract or fee basis (previously classified under SIC code 7389, Business Services, NEC)); or 562211*, 562212*, 562213*, 562219*, 562920* (limited to facilities regulated under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, subtitle C, 42 U.S.C. 6921 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) (corresponds to SIC code 4953, Refuse Systems). • Federal facilities. • Facilities that the EPA Administrator has specifically required to report to TRI pursuant to a determination under EPCRA section 313(b)(2). A more detailed description of the types of facilities covered by the NAICS codes subject to reporting under EPCRA section 313 can be found at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/toxics-release-inventory-tri-program/tri-covered-industry-sectors.</E> To determine whether your facility is affected by this action, you should carefully examine the applicability criteria in 40 CFR part 372, subpart B. Federal facilities are required to report under Section 6(a) and (b) of Executive Order 14096 (88 FR 25251, April 21, 2023), titled “Revitalizing Our Nation's Commitment to Environmental Justice for All.” If you have questions regarding the applicability of this action to a particular entity, consult the person listed under <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> . <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. What action is the Agency taking?</HD> EPA is proposing to add 16 individually listed per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and 15 PFAS categories to the TRI list of toxic chemicals subject to reporting under section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) and section 6607 of the Pollution Prevention Act (PPA). The proposed PFAS chemical categories are comprised of an acid, associated salts, associated acyl/sulfonyl halides, and an anhydride. EPA is proposing to set a manufacturing, processing, and otherwise use reporting threshold of 100 pounds for each individually listed PFAS and PFAS category being proposed for listing by this rulemaking and to designate all PFAS listed under this action as chemicals of special concern. EPA also proposes to reclassify some individually-listed PFAS previously added to the TRI by sections 7321(b) and (c) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 (NDAA) as part of the proposed PFAS chemical categories. Doing so would align such listings with the approach provided for the candidate additions proposed in this rulemaking. This would change these chemicals from being individually listed to being part of the applicable chemical category. Finally, EPA also addresses what events may trigger the automatic addition of PFAS to the TRI list pursuant to the framework established by the NDAA section 7321(c). <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. What is the Agency's authority for taking this action?</HD> EPA is taking this action pursuant to EPCRA sections 313(d) and 328 (42 U.S.C. 11023(d) and 11048), and section 7321(d) of the FY2020 NDAA (Pub. L. 116-92, section 7321). EPCRA is also referred to as Title III of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986. EPCRA section 313 is also referred to as the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). <HD SOURCE="HD3">1. EPCRA Authorities</HD> EPCRA section 313 requires owners/operators of certain facilities that manufacture, process, or otherwise use listed toxic chemicals in amounts above reporting threshold levels to report their facilities' environmental releases and other waste management information on such chemicals annually. These facility owners/operators must also report pollution prevention and recycling data for such chemicals, pursuant to section 6607 of the PPA (42 U.S.C. 13106). Under EPCRA section 313(c), Congress established an initial list of toxic chemicals subject to EPCRA toxic chemical reporting requirements that was comprised of 308 individually listed chemicals and 20 chemical categories. EPCRA section 313(d) authorizes EPA to add or delete chemicals from the list and sets criteria for these actions. EPCRA section 313(d)(2) states that EPA may add a chemical to the list if any of the listing criteria in EPCRA section 313(d)(2) are met. Therefore, to add a chemical, EPA must determine that at least one criterion is met, but need not determine whether any other criterion is met. Conversely, to remove a chemical from the list, EPCRA section 313(d)(3) dictates that EPA must determine that none of the criteria in EPCRA section 313(d)(2) are met. The listing criteria in EPCRA section 313(d)(2)(A) through (C) are as follows: • The chemical is known to cause or can reasonably be anticipated to cause significant adverse acute human health effects at concentration levels that are reasonably likely to exist beyond facility site boundaries as a result of continuous, or frequently recurring, releases. • The chemical is known to cause or can reasonably be anticipated to cause in humans: cancer or teratogenic effects, or serious or irreversible reproductive dysfunctions, neurological disorders, heritable genetic mutations, or other chronic health effects. • The chemical is known to cause or can be reasonably anticipated to cause, because of its toxicity, its toxicity and persistence in the environment, or its toxicity and tendency to bioaccumulate in the environment, a significant adverse effect on the environment of sufficient seriousness, in the judgment of the Administrator, to warrant reporting under this section. EPA often refers to the EPCRA section 313(d)(2)(A) criterion as the “acute human health effects criterion;” the EPCRA section 313(d)(2)(B) criterion as the “chronic human health effects criterion;” and the EPCRA section 313(d)(2)(C) criterion as the “environmental ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 286k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━