Hazardous Waste Management System; User Fees for the Electronic Hazardous Waste Manifest System and Amendments to Manifest Regulations

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) proposes its user fee methodology applicable to electronic and paper manifests submitted to the national electronic manifest system (or e- Manifest system) that is being established by EPA under the Hazardous Waste Electronic Manifest Establishment Act. After the implementation date for the e-Manifest system, certain users of the hazardous waste manifest would be required to pay a prescribed fee for each electronic and paper manifest they use and submit to the system in order for EPA to recover its costs of developing and operating the national e- Manifest system. The final rule that EPA develops in response to public comments on this action's proposed fee methodology will include the final fee methodology. In addition, EPA will include the initial fee schedule and the implementation date for the e-Manifest system in the preamble to the final rule. This action also proposes several amendments to the regulations governing the use of electronic hazardous waste manifests and the completion of manifests. These amendments propose: to change EPA's longstanding regulations regarding transporter changes to shipment routing information on the manifest during transportation, to specify a process by which receiving facilities may submit manifest data corrections to the e-Manifest system, and to modify a provision of the current electronic manifest use requirements that precludes the use of mixed electronic and paper manifests by those users desiring to make use of electronic manifests in settings where not all users are able to participate electronically. This action is expected to result in net cost savings amounting to $34 million per year when discounted at 7% and annualized over 6 years. Further information on the economic effects of this action can be found in section VII of this preamble.