Arkansas: Incorporation by Reference of Approved State Hazardous Waste Management Program

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 272</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R06-RCRA-2022-0756; FRL-12557-02-R6]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Arkansas: Incorporation by Reference of Approved 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 Arkansas' 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 Arkansas program and the EPA is not now reopening the decisions, nor requesting comments, on the Arkansas 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 rule is effective December 18, 2025. The Director of the Federal Register approved this incorporation by reference as of December 18, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-R06-RCRA-2022-0756. All documents in the docket are listed in the <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> index. Although listed in the index, some of the information is not publicly available. <E T="03">e.g.,</E> Confidential Business Information 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">www.regulations.gov.</E> For alternative access to docket materials, please contact the person identified in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Alima Patterson, EPA Region 6 Regional Authorization/Codification Coordinator, RCRA Permit Section (LCR-RP), Land, Chemicals and Redevelopment Division, EPA Region 6, 1201 Elm Street, Suite 500, Dallas, Texas 75270, phone number: (214) 665-8533, or 214-235-7070 email address: <E T="03">patterson.alima@epa.gov.</E> The EPA Region 6 office is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding Federal holidays. </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 Arkansas' 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 Arkansas program. The EPA is not now reopening the decisions, nor requesting new comments, on the Arkansas authorizations as previously published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> documents specified in section I.C of this preamble. 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 Arkansas' hazardous waste management program?</HD> The State of Arkansas initially received final authorization on January 11, 1985, effective January 25, 1985 (50 FR 1513), to implement its Base Hazardous Waste Management Program. We granted authorization for changes to their program on August 23, 1985, via EPA letter, effective August 23, 1985; March 27, 1990 (55 FR 11192), effective May 29, 1990; September 18, 1991 (56 FR 47153), effective November 18, 1991; October 5, 1992 (57 FR 45721), effective December 4, 1992; October 12, 1993 (58 FR 52674), effective December 13, 1993; October 7, 1994 (59 FR 51115), effective December 21, 1994; June 20, 1995 (60 FR 32112), effective August 21, 1995; April 24, 2002 (67 FR 20038), effective June 24, 2002, as amended June 28, 2010 (75 FR 36538); August 15, 2007 (72 FR 45663), effective October 15, 2007, as amended June 28, 2010 (75 FR 36538); June 28, 2010 (75 FR 36538), effective August 27, 2010; August 10, 2012 (77 FR 47779), effective October 9, 2012; October 2, 2014 (79 FR 59438), effective December 1, 2014; October 31, 2014 (79 FR 64678), effective December 30, 2014; January 29, 2016 (81 FR 4961), effective March 29, 2016; August 11, 2016. (81 FR 53025), effective October 11, 2016; September 14, 2017 (82 FR 43185), effective November 13, 2017; and November 23, 2021 (86 FR 66460); effective November 23, 2021. The EPA incorporated by reference Arkansas' then authorized hazardous waste program effective December 13, 1993 (58 FR 52674), August 21, 1995 (60 FR 32112), August 27, 2010 (75 FR 36538), December 1, 2014 (79 FR 59438), March 29, 2016 (81 FR 4961) and November 13, 2017 (82 FR 43185). In this document, the EPA is revising 40 CFR part 272, subpart E to include the authorization revision actions effective November 23, 2021 (86 FR 66460). <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. In accordance with requirements of 1 CFR 51.5, the EPA is finalizing the incorporation by reference of “EPA-Approved Arkansas Statutory and Regulatory Requirements Applicable to the Hazardous Waste Management Program,” dated November 2021, which includes authorized revisions to the hazardous waste management program of the State of Arkansas, effective as of November 23, 2021, and set forth below in the amendments to 40 CFR 272.201. The EPA has made, and will continue to make, this document available electronically through <E T="03">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 <E T="04">Federal Register</E> document is to codify the EPA's authorization of Arkansas' base hazardous waste management program and the State's revisions to that program. The document incorporates by reference “EPA-Approved Arkansas Statutory and Regulatory Requirements Applicable to the Hazardous Waste Management Program,” dated November 2021, and clarifies which of these provisions are included in the authorized and Federally enforceable program. By codifying Arkansas' authorized program and by amending the CFR, the public will be more easily able to discern the status of Federally-approved requirements of the Arkansas hazardous waste management program. The EPA is incorporating by reference the Arkansas authorized hazardous waste program in 40 CFR part 272, subpart E. Section 272.201(c)(1) incorporates by reference “EPA-Approved Arkansas Statutory and Regulatory Requirements Applicable to the Hazardous Waste Management Program,” dated November 2021. Section 272.201 also references material which is not being incorporated by reference, but which the EPA considered in determining the adequacy of Arkansas' program. Section 272.201(c)(2) references sections of the Arkansas statutes and regulations which provide the legal basis for the State's implementation of the hazardous waste management program. In addition, 40 CFR 272.201(c)(4) through (6) reference the Memorandum of Agreement, the Attorney General's Statements, and the Program Description, respectively. These documents are evaluated as part of the approval process 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 272.201(c)(3) the Arkansas 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 Sta ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 37k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━