The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Nov. 14 published in the Federal Register, a final rule amending chemical export reporting requirements.
As proposed in February, the final rule would set thresholds for chemicals below which companies would not have to notify the agency about exports of those substances.
Currently, when shipping chemicals abroad, chemical manufacturers are required to tell EPA if the shipment contains a chemical that is regulated under sections 4, 5, 6, or 7 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). These sections address actions such as tests that EPA has ordered or restrictions EPA has placed on a chemical. The notification is required even if there is only a trace level of the regulated substance as a contaminant or unintended byproduct in a shipment of another chemical that is not subject to the TSCA controls.
A request to make this change came from the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Chemistry Council to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), according to OMB's 2005 report, Regulatory Reform of the U.S. Manufacturing Sector.
EPA's final rule seeks to further reduce the burden of export requirements by allowing chemical manufacturers that must report exports to do so only one time instead of annually.
