The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced a plan to consider a proposed rule that would look at potential exemptions to the TSCA Fees Rule in response to stakeholder concerns about implementation challenges. By considering a proposal to narrow the broad scope of the current requirements, the agency reports that it could significantly reduce the burden on potentially thousands of businesses across the country while maintaining the ability to successfully implement the Lautenberg Act amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

“Stakeholders are important partners in the work we do to ensure the safety of chemicals and seeking feedback from the public is a standard and valuable part of all our processes,” said Alexandra Dapolito Dunn, EPA assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. “After reviewing their input and concerns regarding the TSCA Fees Rule, we are taking action to continue evaluating potential risks from chemicals while ensuring our requirements are practical and realistic.”

The agency plans to initiate a new rulemaking process to consider proposing exemptions to the current rule’s self-identification requirements associated with EPA-initiated risk evaluations for manufacturers that:

  • Import the chemical substance in an article
  • Produce the chemical substance as a byproduct
  • Produce or import the chemical substance as an impurity

The agency may also consider proposing other changes to the rule during this process, consistent with TSCA’s requirement to reevaluate the Fees Rule every three years. The EPA believes that considering exempting certain entities from self-identification requirements will not impede the ability to fully collect the necessary fees and will still allow the agency to achieve the ultimate objective of the TSCA Fees Rule and the statute—to defray a portion of the EPA’s TSCA implementation costs. The EPA intends to issue proposed amendments to the current fees rule later this year, with the goal of finalizing the amendments in 2021.

In addition, according to the EPA, in light of the extremely unusual circumstances of this situation and the undue hardship imposed on certain businesses that would be required to collect and report information under the TSCA Fees Rule, the agency issued a “no action assurance” for the three categories of manufacturers at this time. More specifically, the EPA will exercise its enforcement discretion regarding the self-identification requirement for the three categories of manufacturers that the agency intends to propose an exemption from certain requirements in the TSCA Fee Rule.

Businesses that are erroneously on the preliminary lists of fee payers or fall into one of the three categories discussed above are encouraged to visit the agency’s FAQs for more information about how to certify as such to the EPA and to avoid fee obligations.

Additional information, as well as a copy of the no-action assurance, can be found at https://www.epa.gov/tsca-fees/information-plan-reduce-tsca-fees-burden-and-no-action-assurance.