Texas: Incorporation by Reference of State Hazardous Waste Management Program

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 272</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R06-RCRA-2021-0330; FRL-9522-01-R6]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Texas: Incorporation by Reference of State Hazardous Waste Management Program</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This rule codifies in the regulations the prior approval of Texas' hazardous waste management program and incorporates by reference authorized provisions of the State's statutes and regulations. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses the regulations entitled “Approved State Hazardous Waste Management Programs” to provide notice of the authorization status of State programs and to incorporate by reference those provisions of the State statutes and regulations that are authorized and that EPA will enforce under the Solid Waste Disposal Act, commonly referred to as the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). The EPA previously provided notices and opportunity for comments on the Agency's decisions to authorize the State of Texas program and the EPA is not now reopening the decisions, nor requesting comments, on the Texas authorizations as previously published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> documents specified in Section I.C of this final rule document. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This regulation is effective on December 23, 2024. The Director of the Federal Register approves this incorporation by reference as of December 23, 2024, in accordance with 5 U.S.C. 552(a) and 1 CFR part 51. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-R06-RCRA-2021-0330. 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, will be publicly available only in hard copy. Publicly available docket materials are available electronically through <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> You can view and copy the documents that form the basis for this codification and associated publicly available materials from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, at the following location: EPA, Region 6, 1201 Elm Street, Suite 500, Dallas, Texas 75270, phone number: (214) 665-8533. Interested persons wanting to examine these documents should make an appointment with the office. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Alima Patterson, EPA Region 6 Regional Authorization/Codification Coordinator, RCRA Permits and Solid Waste Section (LCR-RP), Land, Chemicals and Redevelopment Division, EPA Region 6, 1201 Elm Street, Suite 500, Dallas, Texas 75270, phone number: (214) 665-8533, Email address: <E T="03">patterson.alima@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Incorporation by Reference</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. What is codification?</HD> Codification is the process of placing a State's statutes and regulations that comprise the State's authorized hazardous waste management program into the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). Section 3006(b) of RCRA, as amended, allows the EPA to authorize State hazardous waste management programs to operate in lieu of the Federal hazardous waste management regulatory program. The EPA codifies its authorization of State programs in 40 CFR part 272 and incorporates by reference State statutes and regulations that the EPA will enforce under sections 3007 and 3008 of RCRA and any other applicable statutory provisions. The incorporation by reference of State authorized programs in the CFR should substantially enhance the public's ability to discern the current status of the authorized State program and State requirements that can be federally enforced. This effort provides clear notice to the public of the scope of the authorized program in each State. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Why wasn't there a proposed rule before this rule?</HD> The EPA is publishing this rule to codify Texas' authorized hazardous waste management program without a prior proposal because we believe this action is not controversial. The reason being that, in accordance with section 3006(b) of RCRA, EPA has already evaluated the State's regulatory and statutory requirements and has determined that the State's program meets the statutory and regulatory requirements established by RCRA. The EPA previously provided notices and opportunity for comments on the Agency's decisions to authorize the Texas program. The EPA is not now reopening the decisions, nor requesting new comments, on the Texas authorizations as previously published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> documents specified in Section I.C of this final rule document. The previous authorizations form the basis for the codification addressed in this final rule. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. What is the history of the authorization and codification of Texas' hazardous waste management program?</HD> The State of Texas initially received final authorization on December 26, 1984 (49 FR 48300), to implement its Base Hazardous Waste Management Program. This authorization was clarified in a notice published March 26, 1985 (50 FR 11858). Texas received authorization for revisions to its program, effective October 4, 1985 (51 FR 3952), February 17, 1987 (51 FR 45320), March 15, 1990 (55 FR 7318), July 23, 1990 (55 FR 21383), October 21, 1991 (56 FR 41626), December 4, 1992 (57 FR 45719), June 27, 1994 (59 FR 16987), June 27, 1994 (59 FR 17273), November 26, 1997 (62 FR 47947), December 3, 1997 (62 FR 49163), October 18, 1999 (64 FR 44836), November 15, 1999 (64 FR 49673), September 11, 2000 (65 FR 43246), June 14, 2005 (70 FR 34371), December 29, 2008, (73 FR 64252), and July 13, 2009 (74 FR 22469); March 7, 2011 (76 FR 12283), effective May 6, 2011; March 6, 2012 (77 FR 13200), effective May 7, 2012; November 30, 2012 (77 FR 71344), effective January 29, 2013; September 3, 2014 (79 FR 52220), effective November 3, 2014; October 21, 2015 (80 FR 63691), effective December 21, 2015; December 28, 2015 (80 FR 80672), effective February 26, 2016; April 10, 2020 (85 FR 20187), effective April 10, 2020; and March 5, 2021 (86 FR 12834), effective March 5, 2021. The EPA incorporated by reference Texas' then authorized hazardous waste program effective December 3, 1997 (62 FR 49163), November 15, 1999 (64 FR 49673), December 29, 2008 (73 FR 64252), May 6, 2011 (76 FR 12283), January 29, 2013 (77 FR 71344), and February 26, 2016 (80 FR 80672), and April 10, 2020 (85 FR 20187). In this document, EPA is revising subpart SS of 40 CFR part 272 to include the recent authorization revision actions effective March 5, 2021 (86 FR 12834). <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. What codification decisions have we made in this rule?</HD> In this rule, the EPA is finalizing regulatory text that includes incorporation by reference of the authorized hazardous waste management program of the State of Texas. In accordance with requirements of 1 CFR 51.5, the EPA is finalizing the incorporation by reference of the Texas rules described in the amendments to 40 CFR part 272 set forth in section 272.2201. The EPA has made, and will continue to make, these documents available electronically through <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and in hard copy at the appropriate EPA office (see the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section of this preamble for more information). The purpose of this document is to codify Texas' base hazardous waste management program and the State's revisions to that program. This document incorporates by reference Texas' hazardous waste statutes and regulations and clarifies which of these provisions are included in the authorized and federally enforceable program. By codifying Texas' authorized program and by amending the Code of Federal Regulations, the public will be more easily able to discern the status of federally approved requirements of the Texas hazardous waste management program. The EPA is incorporating by reference the Texas authorized hazardous waste program in subpart SS of 40 CFR part 272. Section 272.2201(c)(1) incorporates by reference Texas' authorized hazardous waste statutes and regulations. Section 272.2201 also references material which is not being incorporated by reference, but which EPA considered in determining the adequacy of Texas' program. Section 272.2201(c)(2) references sections of the Texas statutes which provide the legal basis for the State's implementation of the hazardous waste management program. In addition, §§ 272.2201(c)(5), (6), and (7) reference the Memorandum of Agreement, the Attorney General's Statements, and the Program Description, respectively. These documents are evaluated as part of the hazardous waste management program in accordance with subtitle C of RCRA but are not part of the material to be incorporated by reference. State provisions that are “broader in scope” than the Federal program are not incorporated by reference in 40 CFR part 272. For reference and clarity, the EPA lists in 40 CFR 272.2201(c)(3) the Texas statutory and regulatory provisions that are “broader in scope” than the Federal program, and which are not part of the authorized program being incorporated by reference. While “broader in scope” provisions are not part of the authorized program and cannot be enforced by the EPA, the State may enforce such provisions under State law. At 40 CFR 272.2201(c)(4), EPA lists amendments to Texas regulations and Federal rules which are not part of the Texas authorized program. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E. What is the effect of Texas' codif ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 60k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━