It's official: the EPA on Monday amended its regulations on the eligibility criteria for submitting a Form A Certification Statement in lieu of the more detailed Form R submitted by facilities subject to TRI reporting under section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA) and section 6607 of the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 (PPA). The action is being taken to comply with the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 enacted on March 11, 2009.

The EPA noted that it does not need to go through the commenting stage, as the changes were mandated by Congressional  legislation. The rule is effective immediately. Upon publication to the Federal Register on April 27, 2009, the provisions of the Toxics Release Inventory Burden Reduction Final Rule will be removed and the regulations in place prior to its implementation will be restored.

The EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. TRI-2009-0216. All documents in the docket are listed in the EDOCKET index at www.epa.gov/edocket. Although listed in the index, some information is not publicly available, i.e., CBI or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such as copyrighted material, is not placed on the Internet and will be publicly available only in hard copy form.

In the Federal Register of Dec. 22, 2006 (71 FR 76932), the agency issued the Toxics Release Inventory Burden Reduction Final Rule expanding Form A eligibility for non-PBT chemicals and allowing for the first time, and in limited circumstances, Form A eligibility for PBT chemicals. Specifically, the December 2006 final rule allowed facilities to use Form A in lieu of Form R for TRI-listed PBT chemicals (except dioxin and dioxin-like compounds) when there were no annual releases of the PBT chemical, the facility's total annual amount of the chemical recycled, combusted for energy recovery, and/or treated for destruction did not exceed 500 pounds, and the facility did not manufacture, process, or otherwise use more than one million pounds of the PBT chemical. As it related to the Form R data elements, the December 2006 final rule allowed a facility to use Form A instead of Form R for a specific PBT chemical (other than dioxin and dioxin-like compounds) when zero or not applicable (NA) was reported for items a, b, c, and d of Section 8.1 (Total Disposal or Other Releases), the facility did not have any non-production-related releases of the PBT chemical included in Section 8.8 (quantity released to the environment as a result of remedial actions, catastrophic events, or one-time events not associated with production processes), and the total amount reported for recycling, energy recovery, and/or treatment for destruction in Section 8.2 through and including Section 8.8 did not exceed 500 pounds.

The December 2006 final rule also expanded non-PBT chemical eligibility for Form A by raising the annual reportable amount (ARA) eligibility criterion to 5,000 pounds for total annual waste management (i.e., releases, recycling, energy recovery, and treatment for destruction) provided total annual releases of the non-PBT chemical comprised no more than 2,000 pounds of the 5,000-pound total waste management limit. In other words, the December 2006 final rule allowed facilities to use Form A in lieu of Form R for a non-PBT chemical when the facility's total annual reportable amount of the chemical released, recycled, combusted for energy recovery, and/or treated for destruction did not exceed 5,000 pounds, the facility's total annual releases of the chemical did not exceed 2,000 pounds, and the facility did not manufacture, process, or otherwise use more than one million pounds of the non-PBT chemical. As it related to the Form R data elements, the December 2006 final rule allowed a facility to consider Form A for a non-PBT chemical when the sum of Section 8.1 through and including Section 8.8 did not exceed 5,000 pounds and the sum of amounts reported for items a, b, c, and d of Section 8.1 (Total Disposal or Other Releases) and any non-production-related releases reported in Section 8.8 (Quantity released to the environment as a result of remedial actions, catastrophic events, or one-time events not associated with production processes) did not exceed 2,000 pounds. For more information about the December 2006 final rule and to obtain the rule's supporting materials visit the TRI Web site at http://www.epa.gov/tri and the docket for the December 2006 rule at http://www.regulations.gov under docket TRI-2005-0073.

On March 11, 2009, the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 was enacted. The Act reads, in pertinent part:   (1) None of the funds made available by this or any other Act may, hereafter, be used to implement the final rule promulgated by the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency entitled `Toxics Release Inventory Burden Reduction Final Rule' (71 Fed. Reg.76932); and (2) the final rule described in paragraph (1) shall have no force or effect. The affected regulatory text shall revert to what it was before the final rule described in paragraph (1) became effective, until any future action taken by the Administrator.

Accordingly, the EPA issued Monday's final rule revising Form A eligibility for both PBT and non-PBT chemicals to the thresholds established prior to the 2006 TRI Burden Reduction Final Rule.