Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed Renewal Collection and Request for Comment; PCBs, Consolidated Reporting and Recordkeeping Requirements

<NOTICE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OPPT-2017-0647; FRL-12981-01-OCSPP]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed Renewal Collection and Request for Comment; PCBs, Consolidated Reporting and Recordkeeping Requirements</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), this document announces the availability of and solicits public comment on the following Information Collection Request (ICR) that EPA is planning to submit to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB): PCBs, Consolidated Reproting and Recordkeeping requirements (EPA ICR No. 1446.15 and OMB Control No. 2070-0112). This ICR represents a renewal of an existing ICR that is currently approved through July 31, 2026. Before submitting the ICR to OMB for review and approval under the PRA, EPA is soliciting comments on specific aspects of the information collection that is summarized in this document. The ICR and accompanying material are available in the docket for public review and comment. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before February 2, 2026. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by docket identification (ID) number Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OPPT-2017-0647, online at <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> Carolyn Siu, Office of Mission Critical Operations (Mail Code 7602M), Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20460-0001; telephone number: (202) 566-1205; email address: <E T="03">siu.carolyn@epa.gov.</E> <E T="03">For general information contact:</E> The TSCA Assistance Information Service Hotline, Goodwill of the Finger Lakes, 422 South Clinton Ave., Rochester, NY 14620; telephone number: (202) 554-1404; email address: <E T="03">TSCA-Hotline@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. What information is EPA particularly interested in?</HD> Pursuant to PRA section 3506(c)(2)(A) (44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A)), EPA specifically solicits comments and information to enable it to: 1. Evaluate whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the Agency, including whether the information will have practical utility. 2. Evaluate the accuracy of the Agency's estimates of the burden of the proposed collection of information, including the validity of the methodology and assumptions used. 3. Enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected. 4. Minimize the burden of the collection of information on those who are to respond, including through the use of appropriate automated electronic, mechanical, or other technological collection techniques or other forms of information technology, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> permitting electronic submission of responses. In particular, EPA is requesting comments from very small businesses (those that employ less than 25) on examples of specific additional efforts that EPA could make to reduce the paperwork burden for very small businesses affected by this collection. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. What information collection activity or ICR does this action apply to?</HD> <E T="03">Title:</E> PCBs, Consolidated Reporting and Recordkeeping Requirements. <E T="03">EPA ICR No.:</E> 1446.15. <E T="03">OMB Control No.:</E> 2070-0112. <E T="03">ICR Status:</E> This ICR is currently approved through July 31, 2026. Under the PRA, an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information, unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. The OMB control numbers for EPA's regulations in title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), after appearing in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> when approved, are displayed either by publication in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> or by other appropriate means, such as on the related collection instrument or form, if applicable. The display of OMB control numbers for certain EPA regulations is consolidated in 40 CFR part 9. <E T="03">Abstract:</E> Section 6(e)(1) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), 15 U.S.C. 2605(e), directs EPA to regulate the marking and disposal of PCBs. Section 6(e)(2) bans the manufacturing, processing, distribution in commerce, and use of PCBs in other than a totally enclosed manner. TSCA section 6(e)(3) establishes a process for obtaining exemptions from the prohibitions on the manufacture, processing, and distribution in commerce of PCBs. Since 1978, EPA has promulgated numerous rules addressing all aspects of the life cycle of PCBs as required by the statute. The regulations are intended to prevent the improper handling and disposal of PCBs and to minimize the exposure of human beings or the environment to PCBs. These regulations have been codified in the various subparts of 40 CFR 761. There are approximately 100 specific reporting, third-party reporting, and recordkeeping requirements covered by 40 CFR 761. To meet its statutory obligations to regulate PCBs, EPA must obtain sufficient information to conclude that specified activities do not result in an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment. EPA uses the information collected under the 40 CFR 761 requirements to ensure that PCBs are managed in an environmentally safe manner and that activities are being conducted in compliance with the PCB regulations. The information collected by these requirements will update the Agency's knowledge of ongoing PCB activities, ensure that individuals using or disposing of PCBs are held accountable for their activities, and demonstrate compliance with the PCB regulations. Specific uses of the information collected include determining the efficacy of a disposal technology; evaluating exemption requests and exclusion notices; targeting compliance inspections; and ensuring adequate storage capacity for PCB waste. This collection addresses the several information reporting requirements found in the PCB regulations. The ICR, which is available in the docket along with other related materials, provides a detailed explanation of the collection activities and the burden estimate that is only briefly summarized here: <E T="03">Form number(s):</E> 7720-12 and 7710-53. <E T="03">Respondents/affected entities:</E> Entities potentially affected by this ICR include who currently possess PCB items, PCB-contaminated equipment, or other PCB waste North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) codes identified in question 12 of the ICR. <E T="03">Respondent's obligation to respond:</E> Mandatory. 40 CFR 761 and TSCA section 6(e). <E T="03">Estimated number of potential respondents:</E> 97,471. <E T="03">Frequency of response:</E> On Occasion. <E T="03">Total estimated average number of responses for each respondent:</E> 3. <E T="03">Total estimated burden:</E> 636,120 hours (per year). Burden is defined at 5 CFR 1320.3(b). <E T="03">Total estimated costs:</E> $37,983,632 (per year), includes $4,150 annualized capital investment or maintenance and operational costs. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Are there changes in the estimates from the last approval?</HD> There is an increase of 3,191 hours in the total estimated individual respondent burden compared with that identified in the ICR currently approved by OMB, although overall there is a decrease in 23,762 burden hours compared with the currently approved. This increase reflects EPA's update of the burden hours in the 3 major categories: Reporting, Third-party Reporting, and Recordkeeping. Reporting increased 3,171 hours due to an increase in respondents by 1 and based on the average number of applications received in the Agency in FY2022-FY2024. This activity has a 2,000-hour burden associated with it. Third-party reporting remained constant. Recordkeeping increased 20 hours mostly due to a new reporting requirement, based on the number of notices received by the Agency in FY2022-FY2024. This is an adjustment. There is also an increase in the capital costs from what is currently approved by OMB by $4,100. This is a correction. The currently approved capital costs of $50 represents per firm costs, not total capital costs. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. What is the next step in the process for this ICR?</HD> EPA will consider the comments received and amend the ICR as appropriate. The final ICR package will then be submitted to OMB for review and approval pursuant to 5 CFR 1320.12. EPA will issue another <E T="04">Federal Register</E> document pursuant to 5 CFR 1320.5(a)(1)(iv) to announce the submission of the ICR to OMB and the opportunity to submit additional comments to OMB. If you have any questions about this ICR or the approval process, please contact the person listed under <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> . <E T="03">Authority:</E> 44 U.S.C. 3501 <E T="03">et seq.</E> <SIG> <DATED>Dated: November 27, 2025.</DATED> <NAME>Nancy B. Beck,</NAME> Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator, Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. </SIG> </SUPLINF> <FRDOC>[FR Doc. 2025-21938 Filed 12-3-25; 8:45 am]</FRDOC ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 10k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━