Letter From John W. Melone, Director, Chemical Control Division, U.S. EPA, to Geraldine Cox, Vice President-Technical Director, CMA (Mar. 15, 1990) (ELR Order No. AD-476)

• Author: Carolyne R. Hathaway/William K. Rawson/Ann Claassen/Julia A. Hatcher
• Pages: 547-550

Letter Regarding Clarif‌ication of Generic SNUR Page 547

Letter From Director, Chemical

Control Division, to Vice President-

Technical Director, Chemical

Manufacturers Association, Regarding

Clarif‌ication of Generic SNUR

EPA

3/15/90

UNITED S TATE S ENVIRONMENTAL

PROTECTION AGENCY

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20460

MAR 15 1990

OFFICE OF PESTICIDES AND TOXIC

SUBSTANCES

Dr. Geraldine Cox

Vice President-Technical Director

Chemical Manuf acturers Association

2502 M St NW

Washington, DC 20037

Re: Claricat ion of Generic SNUR

Dear Dr. Cox:

is letter is in respons e to your letter of November 17,

1989 regarding certai n compliance and implementa-

tion issues perta ining to the recently published General

Provisions For New Chemical Follow-Up (“the Generic

SNUR rule”). I am gl ad to have this opportunity to

clarify E PA’s interpretation of several importa nt issues

prior to promulgation of the rst batch of SNUR’s

under the Generic SNUR ru le. e Agency’s specic

responses to the issues r aised are outlined below.

Immediately Effective Final Rules

In your letter you stated that i mmediately eective

rulemaki ng should be used sparingly and that when

it is used, the eect of the r ules should be delayed a

minimum of 30 days. EPA agree s that promulgation

of immediately eect ive rules which do not allow for

a comment period prior to the eective date w ill be

limited to unusual ci rcumstances. EPA is aware of the

potential commercial h ardships which may be caused

by such rules and intends to is sue them only when

necessar y to address serious threats to human hea lth

or the environment. e new section 721.160 provides

that direct na l rules will be eective 60 d ays from

publication unless EPA receives notice w ithin 30 days

that someone wishes to submit adverse or critica l com-

ments. EPA intends to use direct na l rulemaking in

most cases as t his type of rulemakin g allows aected

parties adequate t ime to comply with SNUR restric-

tions and to make comments for t he public record.

You made several suggestions for publici zing the

SNUR status of a c hemical including p eriodically

publishing a Federal Re gister notice listing SNUR can-

didates so that compa nies are not surprised by imme-

diately eective SN UR requirements. Periodically

publishing a list of SNU R candidates and expected

SNUR provisions is not an ecient use of A gency

resources as it wil l not inform other manufacturers

or processors any better t han the SNUR rulemaki ng

process itself.

EPA intends to issue SNURs for a ll chemicals subject

to 5(e) order signed after October 10, 1989 whether a

notice of commencement is received or not. Almos t

every SNUR w ill be issued under a direct nal r ule

which will bec ome eective no sooner than 6 0 days

after being published . In most cases SNUR regulation

of a PMN chemical wil l occur before a notice of com-

mencement is received with a mini mum of sixty day s

of public notice. Currently, EPA ags chemicals on the

TSCA inventory that are subjec t to SNUR regulations

by placing a letter “S” next to the i nventory listing

and indexing the Federa l Register citation on separate

index. In the cas e of Inventory search requests m ade

under the “bona de” procedure s of 40 CFR 721.6,

EPA discloses the terms of 5(e) consent order or SNUR

regulations th at apply to such chemicals. e term s

of a 5(e) order will generally closely match the terms

of the corresponding SNU R. Once a company learns

through a bona de, the public  le, or any other source

the terms of a 5(e) order for a chemical, that company

should immediately know or be able to di scover the

likely terms of a SNU R for the chemical.

Testing Requirements

You wanted EPA to clarify how testing requi re-

ments will be implemented where there are multiple

manufacturer s of a SNUR chemica l. You speci cally

asked if EPA will remove production volume limits

requirements once one manufactu rer has submitted

the required data. EPA wil l consider removing pro-

duction volume limits requirements on a ca se-by-case

basis once the required tes ting has been submitted and

evaluated by EPA. If, based on the submitte d testing

or other considerations, the Agenc y can conclude that

the chemical does not present a n unreasonable risk to

human health or the envi ronment then the production

limit will be revoked . For example, the required te sting

may indicate certa in adverse health eects. Under the

terms of the SNUR worker protection may ade quately

control the risk of those health e ects. In that example

the Agency would revoke t he volume trigger. If the

Agency concludes that t he chemical will or may pres-

ent an unreasonable risk, t hen the production limit