On August 5th of this year, President Clinton signed into law the Chemical Safety Information, Site Security and Fuels Regulatory Relief Act (PL 106-40). The new law modifies the public disclosure requirements for stationary sources contained in section 112(r)(7)(B)(ii) of the Clean Air Act (the CAA). In brief, Section 112 of the CAA requires stationary sources that emit enumerated hazardous air pollutants to prepare a Risk Management Program (RMP) and submit a summary of it to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The new chemical safety law modifies Section 112(r)(7) of the CAA to limit EPA employees and other "government officials" from discussing with the general public certain Off-Site Consequences (OSC) analysis submitted as part of the RMP. The OSC is the part of the RMP that describes the impact of a catastrophic failure at a chemical facility, which stores, uses, or generates enumerated hazardous air pollutants to the surrounding area. The law was enacted to address concerns raised by national security agencies regarding EPA's proposal to publicly disclose OSC information via the Internet. The new law itself is only an interim measure, and the government is expected to complete an assessment and rulemaking to address the future public availability of OCA materials by August 5, 2000.
The new law prohibits (1) government officials; (2) their agents and contractors; (3) individuals affiliated with entities responsible for preventing, planning for, or responding to accidental releases; and (4) researchers from disclosing to the public the OCA and related material. The law does not, however, prohibit facilities from choosing to share with the public the OCA sections of their RMPs. Facilities that choose to share such information must notify the EPA, which will keep a list of facilities that have released their OCA material without restriction. Government officials will not be restricted from disseminating any OCA material already released to the public by a facility.
By February of 2000, the EPA and Department of Justice will implement a system for providing OCA information to any qualified researchers from either industry or public interest groups. These qualified researchers will not be permitted to make any portion of the OCA information available over the Internet.
The new law further requires each stationary source to convene a public meeting, after reasonable public notice, to describe and discuss the local implications of the facility's RMP, including a summary of the OCA portion of the plan. The meeting must be held by February 1, 2000.
There are some exceptions to the public meeting requirement. Stationary sources that have recently held public meetings addressing the same topics may not need to conduct new public meetings. Further, certain small businesses may satisfy the public meeting requirement by publicly posting summaries of their OCA information, if the company: (1) has 100 or fewer employees; (2) meets the Small Business Administration definition of "small business;" (3) emits less than 50 tons of any one regulated pollutant per year; and (4) emits a total of less than 75 tons of all regulated pollutants per year. The new law is also not applicable to stationary sources that employ only Program 1 (low-risk) processes. Please contact us to see if your facility may be exempted from the requirements of the new law.
Owners and operators of stationary sources must send a certification to the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) stating their compliance with the new law by either convention of a public meeting or public posting. The FBI will provide documentation to the EPA, which has the power to enforce the provisions of a new law.