Groups ask for more time to review RMP changes

Washington — The Agricultural Retailers Association (ARA) and The Fertilizer Institute (TFI) have joined seven other trade groups to ask the U.S. EPA for more time to review proposed changes to the Clean Air Act’s accidental release/risk management program (RMP) regulations. In a Sept. 26 letter to the EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, the trade groups also asked EPA to utilize a federal advisory subcommittee comprised of industry stakeholders to review the RMP regulations and provide scientific and technical recommendations to EPA on whether any major changes to the program are necessary. EPA published a request for information on the proposed RMP changes in the Federal Register on July 31 that contained more than 380 questions on 19 topics that covered more than 100 options for the RMP program. Proposed changes to the RMP include expanding the list of covered substances, mandating an inherently safer technology (IST) analysis, and other proposals to expand the program. Stakeholders had 90 days to provide input, but the trade groups’ letter said that time frame is “woefully inadequate” to provide the kind of details that EPA seeks, which includes “detailed financial data regarding costs and economic impacts on industry.” The groups are asking for an additional 90 days for the comment period, a time period that they believe is adequate to allow the federal advisory subcommittee to thoroughly review the RMP. They said this will ensure transparency and “prevent inappropriate influence from any special interest.”