Lead Wheel Weights; Petition for Rulemaking Under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA); Decision Not To Proceed With a Rulemaking

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Chapter I</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OPPT-2024-0085; FRL-5398-06-OCSPP]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2070-AJ64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Lead Wheel Weights; Petition for Rulemaking Under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA); Decision Not To Proceed With a Rulemaking</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Petition; reasons for Agency response. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or Agency) has decided not to proceed with the development of a regulation addressing the manufacture, processing, or distribution in commerce of lead for wheel-balancing weights (“lead wheel weights”) under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). This action relates to a citizen petition filed with the Agency in 2009 (“2009 petition”). The 2009 petition, which EPA granted, asked EPA to initiate a rulemaking proceeding to regulate the manufacturing, processing, or distribution in commerce of lead wheel weights. In 2023, the same parties filed a petition for a writ of mandamus (“mandamus petition”) that sought to compel EPA to initiate the rulemaking proceeding requested in the 2009 petition. After reviewing the information submitted in response to an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) issued in April 2024 and EPA's technical analysis thereof, EPA has decided not to proceed with the development of a proposed rule. Addressing potential remaining exposures from lead continues to be a high priority for EPA, as reflected in EPA's announcement that “Lead and Lead Compounds” is on its list of candidate chemical substances currently being considered for future prioritization actions under TSCA. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This decision is effective December 23, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The docket for this action, identified by docket identification (ID) number EPA-HQ-OPPT-2024-0085, is available online at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Additional information about dockets generally, along with instructions for visiting the docket in-person, is available at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/dockets.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> <E T="03">Technical information:</E> Sean Duenser, 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) 343-9157; email address: <E T="03">duenser.sean@epa.gov.</E> <E T="03">General information:</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. General Information</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Does this action apply to me?</HD> This action is directed to the public in general. It may be of interest to those who manufacture, process, distribute in commerce, use, or dispose of 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: • 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); • 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> TSCA section 21, 15 U.S.C. 2620, 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. In addition, 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, among other requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. What action is the Agency taking?</HD> EPA is issuing this action to inform the public of its decision not to regulate the manufacture, processing, or distribution in commerce of lead for wheel-balancing weights (“lead wheel weights”) under TSCA. This action is limited to lead for lead wheel weights. EPA's actions to address “lead and lead compounds” more broadly are discussed in Unit IV.C. This action relates to a citizen petition filed with the Agency in 2009 under TSCA section 21, which asked EPA to initiate a TSCA rulemaking proceeding to regulate the manufacturing, processing, or distribution in commerce of lead wheel weights (Ref. 1). The 2009 petition was filed by representatives of the following groups: Ecology Center, Sierra Club, Alliance for Healthy Homes, Center for Environmental Health, Environmental Health Watch, Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning, United Parents Against Lead, Louisiana ACORN, Lead Technicians, Tulane University, Drexel School of Public Health, and one individual (collectively, “Petitioners”). EPA granted this petition in 2009. In 2023, the same parties filed a petition for a writ of mandamus (“mandamus petition”) in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit: <E T="03">Ecology Center, et al.</E> v. <E T="03">U.S. EPA,</E> No. 23-70158 (9th Cir.) (Ref. 2). The mandamus petition sought to compel EPA to initiate the rulemaking proceeding requested in the 2009 petition. EPA published for comment a proposed settlement agreement with the petitioners in March 2024. As part of the settlement agreement, EPA proceeded with an ANPRM in April 2024. EPA and the Petitioners then entered into a settlement agreement in September 2024. EPA is taking this action after reviewing the information submitted to EPA in response to the ANPRM (Ref. 3), in addition to other reasonably available information, and this action is also supported by EPA's technical analysis, entitled: <E T="03">Technical Support Document for Lead Wheel Weights</E> (TSD) (Ref. 4), which further discusses the low potential for exposure to children and injury to human health or the environment from lead wheel weights based on the exposure scenarios evaluated for this petition. This action serves as EPA's final decision in response to the 2009 petition. In addition, this action will not have a preemptive effect on State actions under TSCA section 18. <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. Why is the Agency taking this action?</HD> In April 2024, EPA published an ANPRM seeking information regarding the use and exposure to lead from the manufacture (including import), 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 lead wheel weights (Ref. 3). The Agency received 128 comments providing input on whether to move forward with the development of a rule regulating lead wheel weights. The Agency did not, however, receive any lead wheel weight exposure data during the ANPRM public comment period that it had not already considered or that would be sufficient to determine that this activity presents an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment and necessitate a proposed rulemaking, as discussed in Unit IV. As also addressed in Unit IV., the Agency preliminarily found that risk associated with residential exposure is lower than previously believed. The Agency further believes that examination of risks associated with exposures to lead from the manufacture (including import), processing (including recycling), distribution in commerce ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 56k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━