03-27481. Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to OMB for Review and Approval; Comment Request; Toxic Chemical Release Reporting, Recordkeeping, Supplier Notification and Petitions Under Section 313 of the Emergency Planning and ...

AGENCY:

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION:

Notice.

SUMMARY:

In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.), this document announces that an Information Collection Request (ICR) has been forwarded to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval. The Agency is requesting that OMB renew for 3 years the existing approval for this ICR, which is scheduled to expire on October 31, 2003. Under OMB regulations, the Agency may continue to conduct or sponsor the collection of information while this submission is pending at OMB. This ICR describes the nature of the information collection and its estimated burden and cost.

DATES:

Additional comments may be submitted on or before December 1, 2003.

ADDRESSES:

Submit your comments, referencing docket ID number OEI-2003-0025, to (1) EPA online using EDOCKET (our preferred method), by email to [e-mail], or by mail to: EPA Docket Center, Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Environmental Information Docket, 28221T, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW., Washington, DC 20460, and (2) OMB at: Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Attention: Desk Officer for EPA, 725 17th Street, NW., Washington, DC 20503.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Judith Kendall, Office of Environmental Information, Mailcode 2844T, Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW., Washington, DC 20460; telephone number: [phone]; fax number: [phone]; email address: [e-mail].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

EPA has submitted the following ICR to OMB for review and approval according to the procedures prescribed in 5 CFR 1320.12. A Federal Register notice announcing the Agency's intent to seek the renewal of this ICR and the 60-day public comment opportunity, requesting comments on the request and the contents of the ICR, was issued on July 1, 2003 (68 FR 39074). EPA received a number of comments on this ICR during the comment period, which have been addressed. The comments and EPA's responses are included as part of the ICR renewal request package, and will be made available in the docket for OEI-2003-0025 and on the EPA TRI Web site at http://www.epa.gov/​tri.

EPA has established a public docket for this ICR under Docket ID No. OEI-2003-0025, which is available for public viewing at the Office of Environmental Information Docket in the EPA Docket Center (EPA/DC), EPA West, Room B102, 1301 Constitution Ave., NW, Washington, DC. The EPA Docket Center Public Reading Room is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding legal holidays. The telephone number for the Reading Room is [phone], and the telephone number for the Office of Environmental Information Docket is [phone]. An electronic version of the public docket is available through EPA Dockets (EDOCKET) at http://www.epa.gov/​edocket. Use EDOCKET to submit or view public comments, access the index listing of the contents of the public docket, and to access those documents in the public docket that are available electronically. Once in the system, select “search,” then key in the docket ID number identified above.

Any comments related to this ICR should be submitted to EPA and OMB within 30 days of this notice. EPA's policy is that public comments, whether submitted electronically or in paper, will be made available for public viewing in EDOCKET as EPA receives them and without change, unless the comment contains copyrighted material, CBI, or other information whose public disclosure is restricted by statute. When EPA identifies a comment containing copyrighted material, EPA will provide a reference to that material in the version of the comment that is placed in EDOCKET. The entire printed comment, including the copyrighted material, will be available in the public docket. Although identified as an item in the official docket, information claimed as CBI, or whose disclosure is otherwise restricted by statute, is not included in the official public docket, and will not be available for public viewing in EDOCKET. For further information about the electronic docket, see EPA's Federal Register notice describing the electronic docket at 67 FR 38102 (May 31, 2002), or go to http://www.epa.gov/​edocket.

Title: Toxic Chemical Release Reporting, Recordkeeping, Supplier Notification and Petitions under Section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA): Renewal

Abstract: EPCRA section 313 requires owners and operators of certain facilities that manufacture, process, or otherwise use any of over 650 listed toxic chemicals and chemical categories in excess of applicable threshold quantities to report annually to the Environmental Protection Agency and to the states in which such facilities are located on their environmental releases and other waste management quantities of such chemicals. In addition, section 6607 of the Pollution Prevention Act (PPA) requires that facilities provide information on the quantities of the toxic chemicals in waste streams and the efforts made to reduce or eliminate those quantities.

EPA collects, processes, and makes available to the public all of the information collected. The information gathered under these authorities is stored in a database maintained at EPA and is available through the Internet. This information, commonly known as the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), is used extensively by both EPA and the public sector. Program offices within EPA use TRI data, along with other sources of data, to establish priorities, evaluate potential exposure scenarios, and undertake enforcement activities. Environmental and public interest groups use the data in studies and reports, making the public more aware of releases of chemicals in their communities.

Responses to the collection of information are mandatory (see 40 CFR part 372). Respondents may claim all or part of a notice confidential. EPA will disclose information that is covered by a claim of confidentiality only to the extent permitted by, and in accordance with, the procedures in TSCA section 14 and 40 CFR part 2.

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 40 CFR are listed in 40 CFR part 9 and are identified on the form.

Burden Statement: The annual public burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 19.5 hours per response. Under the PRA, “burden” means the total time, effort, or financial resources expended by persons to generate, maintain, retain, or disclose or provide information to or for a federal agency. For this collection, it includes the time needed to review instructions; develop, acquire, install, and utilize technology and systems for the purposes of collecting, validating, and verifying information, processing and maintaining information, and disclosing and providing information; adjust the existing ways to comply with any previously applicable instructions and requirements; train personnel to be able to respond to a collection of information; search data sources; complete and review the collection of information; and transmit or otherwise disclose the information.

The following is a summary of the burden estimates taken from the ICR:

Respondents/affected entities: Owners or operators of certain facilities that manufacture, process, or otherwise use certain specified toxic chemicals and chemical categories and are required to report annually on the environmental releases and transfers of waste management activities for such chemicals.

Estimated total number of potential responses: 84,000.

Frequency of response: Annual.

Estimated total annual burden hours: 2,432,898.

Estimated total annual burden costs: $111.3 million in labor costs.

Changes in Burden Estimates

The reduction in the estimated total burden of 3,133,666 hours is the result of three adjustments.

The first adjustment is to the number of responses. The estimate of 88,117 responses in the existing OMB approval incorporated a predicted reporting increase from the economic analysis of the final rule to lower reporting thresholds for lead and lead compounds. This prediction overestimated actual reporting levels; EPA received about 70 percent of the additional lead and lead compound reports that were forecast. The number of responses in this ICR supporting statement have been adjusted to accurately reflect actual reporting levels (rounded to the next highest thousand responses). This adjustment accounts for a decrease of about 218,000 hours.

The second adjustment is to the unit burden hour estimates for subsequent year reporting. EPA has adjusted the estimate of unit burden hours for Form R completion in subsequent years from 47.1 hours to 14.5 hours based on responses from TRI reporting facilities. This adjustment accounts for a decrease of about 2.68 million hours.

The third adjustment relates to the adoption of TRI-ME, an automated reporting software package. EPA has reduced the burden estimates related to Form R Completion and Recordkeeping/Submission by 15 percent for the reports filed using TRI-ME. An estimated 90 percent of reports are expected to be filed using TRI-ME over the three years of the ICR. This adjustment accounts for a decrease of about 232,000 hours.

The sum of these adjustments is a decrease of 4,117 responses and 3,133,666 burden hours from the current approved total.

Dated: October 27, 2003.

Doreen Sterling,

Acting Director, Collection Strategies Division.