Reconsideration of the Dust-Lead Hazard Standards and Dust-Lead Post-Abatement Clearance Levels; Correction

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 745</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OPPT-2023-0231; FRL-8524.1-02-OCSPP]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2070-AK91</RIN> <SUBJECT>Reconsideration of the Dust-Lead Hazard Standards and Dust-Lead Post-Abatement Clearance Levels; Correction</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule; correcting amendments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) is correcting a final rule that appeared in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> of November 12, 2024, that finalized several revisions to EPA's lead-based paint (LBP) regulations. Subsequent to publication, the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) informed the Agency that there were errors in the amendatory instructions that describe specific revisions for two sections of the regulation. In the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> of December 16, 2024, EPA published a technical correction to the final rule that explained the errors and the corresponding technical corrections that the Agency believed would address the errors identified by the OFR. Unfortunately, that technical correction did not fix the amendatory instructions prior to the effective date of the final rule. As a result, when the final rule became effective on January 13, 2025, three subparagraphs of regulatory text were inadvertently deleted—a change to the post-abatement regulatory activities that EPA did not intend to make. This action corrects that error by restoring the inadvertently deleted text in the regulations. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective July 9, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The docket for this action, identified by docket identification (ID) number EPA-HQ-OPPT-2023-0231, is available online at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Additional instructions on 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:</E> Claire Brisse, Existing Chemicals Risk Management Division, Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20460-0001; telephone number: (202) 564-9004; email address: <E T="03">brisse.claire@epa.gov.</E> <E T="03">For general information on lead:</E> The National Lead Information Center, 422 South Clinton Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620; telephone number: (800) 424-LEAD [5323]; online form: <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/lead/forms/lead-hotline-national-lead-information-center.</E> <E T="03">For general information on TSCA:</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> <E T="03">For hearing- or speech-impaired assistance:</E> Persons may reach the telephone numbers for the contacts through TTY by calling the toll-free Federal Communications Commission's Telecommunications Relay Service at 711. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Does this action apply to you?</HD> You may be affected by this action if you conduct abatement activities in accordance with 40 CFR 745.227 or if you operate a training program required to be accredited under 40 CFR 745.225 that trains individuals about abatement activities. 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. Affected entities may include: • Engineering services (NAICS code 541330) and building inspection services (NAICS code 541350) ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> dust sampling technicians). • Lead abatement professionals (NAICS code 562910) ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> firms and supervisors engaged in LBP activities). • Other technical and trade schools (NAICS code 611519) ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> training providers). If you have questions regarding the applicability of this action to a particular entity, consult the regulations or contact the technical information person listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. What action is the Agency taking?</HD> EPA is reestablishing inadvertently deleted regulatory text at 40 CFR 745.227(e)(8)(v), which was originally promulgated in 2001 pursuant to TSCA section 402. See 66 FR 1206, January 5, 2001 (FRL-6763-5), also known as the “2001 LBP Hazards Rule.” The inadvertently deleted regulatory text in 40 CFR 745.227(e)(8)(v)(A), (B) and (C) outlines post-abatement dust sampling activities and how they should be conducted in or on residential dwellings or child-occupied facilities. The error occurred when EPA published a final rule in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> of November 12, 2024, entitled “Dust-Lead Hazard Standards and Dust-Lead Post-Abatement Clearance Levels” and also known as the “dust-lead reconsideration rulemaking.” See 89 FR 89416, November 12, 2024 (FRL-8524-02-OCSPP). After publication of the November 2024 final rule, the OFR identified errors in the amendatory instructions for two sections of the regulations. One of those errors, the amendatory instruction identified as “17b”, directed OFR to revise 40 CFR 745.227(e)(8)(v); however, the instructions did not include the “introductory text” and, as a result, the instructions inadvertently directed OFR to delete the subordinate paragraphs to paragraph (e)(8)(v). The instruction should have directed OFR to revise the introductory text of paragraph (e)(8)(v) only, as EPA intended to modify the introductory text paragraph (e)(8)(v) and had not proposed or intended to modify (e)(8)(v)(A), (B) and (C). In the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> of December 16, 2024, EPA published a technical correction to the November 2024 final rule that explained the errors and provided the corresponding technical corrections that the Agency believed would address the errors identified by the OFR. Unfortunately, that technical correction did not fix the amendatory instructions prior to the effective date of the final rule. As a result, when the final rule became effective on January 13, 2025, the three subparagraphs at 40 CFR 745.227(e)(8)(v)(A), (B) and (C) were inadvertently deleted, a change that EPA neither proposed nor envisioned in the dust-lead reconsideration rulemaking finalized on November 12, 2024. This action will restore the inadvertently deleted regulatory text to restore the relied upon methods that help ensure and provide clarity, so abatements are done in a manner that is reliable, effective and safe (15 U.S.C. 2682(a)(1)). <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Why is this correction issued as a final rule?</HD> EPA's authority for issuing this correction is provided by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 553. Section 553(b)(B) of the APA provides that when an agency for good cause finds that notice and public procedure are impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest, the agency may issue a final rule without providing notice and an opportunity for public comment. For the reasons discussed in this unit, EPA has determined that notice and public comment are unnecessary and contrary to the public interest for this action. As discussed in the December 2024 technical correction, the November 2024 final rule published with inaccurate amendatory instructions that resulted in the inadvertent deletion of existing regulatory text. The December 2024 technical correction further explained the context of the error to the amendatory instructions and clarified that the OFR made the Agency aware of the error after the final rule published. Additionally, the December 2024 technical correction described in succinct detail what text was inadvertently omitted within the amendatory instructions in the November 2024 final rule, explaining that “the instruction should direct the OFR to revise the introductory text of the paragraph (e)(8)(v)” as “the set-out text for paragraph (e)(8)(v) does not include the subordinate paragraphs . . . .” That document further explained that corrections to the amendatory instructions were necessary to allow for the proper revisions to be incorporated into the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). Nonetheless, the amendatory instructions in the December 2024 technical correction failed to actually effectuate the desired corrections to the regulation, resulting in the inadvertent deletion of the existing text beyond the introductory text of the paragraph. This action corrects the error by restoring the inadvertently deleted regulatory text in 40 CFR 745.227(e)(8)(v)(A) through (C), which was neither proposed nor envisioned to be deleted or modified in the dust-lead reconsideration rulemaking finalized on November 12, 2024. This action will ensure the regulatory text is comports with the description from the final rule preamble, which did not include any discussion on these additional deletions, as they were done in error. Since this correction is intended to restore the regulatory text that the Agency did not intend to change with the November 2024 final rule or the subsequent technical correction of December 2024, EPA finds that notice and comment for this rulemaking is unnecessary under the APA's “good cause” exemption. In addition, any further delay in restoring the inadvertently deleted regulatory text potentially resulting from a notice and comment process would harm the public interest (including that of the regulated community). The inadvertently deleted regulatory text, which was originally established in 2001, sets forth key requirements after an abateme ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 17k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━