To:
Members & Affiliates
From:
National Office
Date:
December 2, 1999
Subject:
EPA Fact Sheet — Public Meeting Requirements For Information Relating To Accidental Release of Hazardous Substances
Reference:
LA 99-15
Public Meeting Required By: February 1, 2000
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed a short fact sheet (see attached) describing in greater detail the requirement for some POTWs, and other stationary sources, to hold public meetings on restricted information from risk management plans (RMPs). The public meeting requirement is part of a new law, the Fuels Regulatory Relief Act, signed into law (P.L. 106-040) on August 5, 1999 [see AMSA Legislative Alert, LA 99-13 (August 24, 1999)]. The Act is intended to offset measures which restrict public access to off-site consequence analysis (OCA) information due to security concerns. The public meeting requirement of the Act applies to POTWs which were required to submit RMPs, with the exception of those facilities regulated under Program 1 requirements (see below). For all relevant POTWs, the public meetings must be held by no later than Tuesday, February 1, 2000. Failure to comply will be a violation under the Clean Air Act.
Background
Section 112(r)(7) of the Clean Air Act, as amended, requires EPA to promulgate regulations and appropriate guidance to provide for prevention and detection of accidental releases of chemicals and for response to such releases. EPA promulgated its final RMP rule on June 20, 1996. The regulation requires the owner or operator of stationary sources at which a regulated substance is present to prepare an RMP by no later than June 21, 1999. The final rule outlined EPA's tiering approach for imposing requirements based upon: (1) the potential for offsite consequences associated with a worst-case accidental release; (2) accident history; and (3) applicable compliance with prevention requirements under OSHA's Process Safety Management (PSM) Standard. Program 1 (Tier 1) is available to any process that has not had an accidental release with offsite consequences in the five years prior to submission of the RMP, and has no public receptors within the distance to a specified toxic or flammable endpoint associated with the defined worst-case scenario. Program 3 (Tier 3) applies to petroleum, chemical, and paper manufacturing processes (Standard Industrial Classification [SIC] codes 2611, 2812, 2819, 2821, 2865, 2869, 2873, 2879, and 2911) and all processes subject to the OSHA Process Safety Management Standard (29 CFR 1910.119), unless the process is eligible for Program 1. All other covered processes must satisfy Program 2 requirements.Fuels Regulatory Relief Act - P.L. 106-040
The purpose of the Fuels Regulatory Relief Act is to restrict the availability of off-site consequence information contained in an RMP in order to guard against security risks. The Act directs the President to assess the risks of terrorist and criminal activity associated with the availability of off-site exposure information and the incentives created by public disclosure of off-site consequence analysis information. Following the assessment, the President is required to promulgate regulations which limit the public availability of such information. Among the requirements of the Act is a 1 year moratorium on sharing information from off-site consequence analyses with the public. The public meeting provision is intended to offset the access restrictions during the moratorium period.Certain POTWs Are Exempt
According to Section 4(a) of the Act, the public meeting requirement does not apply “to sources that employ only Program 1 processes” (see Page 1) defined by EPA's RMP rule promulgated on June 20, 1996. Therefore, if your facility was only subject to Program 1 requirements under the RMP rule, then the public meeting requirement does not apply.Fact Sheet
The attached fact sheet contains a more detailed description of the public meeting requirement, including which facilities are affected, a sample certification form for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a sample notification form for EPA, and contact information for further questions. At least one AMSA member, the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC) has already held its public meeting. EPA posted a summary of WSSC's public meeting to provide other affected facilities with a sample description of compliance with the Act. WSSC's meeting summary is also attached.For More Information Contact ...
For more information on the new requirements, please call Carol Macko at EPA's Office of Solid Waste & Emergency Response at 202/260-7938, or the Emergency Planning & Community Right-to-Know Hotline at 800/424-9346. In addition, EPA's webpage at http://www.epa.gov/swercepp/whatnew.cfml contains additional information on the RMP and public meeting requirements. Also, please feel free to contact Greg Schaner, AMSA's Manager of Government Affairs at 202/296-9836 or gschaner@amsa-cleanwater.org if you should have any questions.Attachments:
October 1999 Chemical Safety Information, Site Security and Fuels Regulatory Relief Act: Public Meetings and Other Notifications WSSC Public Meeting Project For these downloadable files, you must have the Acrobat Reader. If you don't have the Acrobat Reader, click on the icon below to download a copy. After you download and install a copy, return to this page and click on the link above for the downloadable files.
