[Federal Register Volume 68, Number 25 (Thursday, February 6, 2003)]
[Notices]
[Pages 6149-6151]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 03-3062]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[FRL-7449-3]


Emergency Planning and Notification; Hazardous Chemical 
Reporting: Community Right-to-Know; Request for Comment on Change of 
Contractor Handling Trade Secret Claims

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: This notice announces a change in location and contractor 
designated to manage the trade secret claims submitted for reports 
under Emergency Planning and Notification and Hazardous Chemical 
Reporting for Community Right-to-Know pursuant to 40 CFR part 350. In 
compliance with 40 CFR part 350 (``Trade Secrecy Claims for Emergency 
Planning and Community Right-to-Know Information'') facilities 
providing emergency planning notification and relevant information to 
the State Emergency Response Commission and Local Emergency Planning 
Committee under section 303(d)(2) and (d)(3) of EPCRA; facilities 
submitting Material Safety Data Sheets or lists of those chemicals 
submitted in place of the MSDSs under section 311 of EPCRA; facilities 
submitting Emergency and Hazardous Chemical Inventory Forms under 
section 312 of EPCRA may be eligible to claim Trade

[[Page 6150]]

Secret for the specific chemical identity of a chemical that is 
reported in these reports. Pursuant to 40 CFR 350.23 (``Disclosure to 
authorized representatives''), information entitled to trade secret or 
confidential treatment may not be disclosed by the Agency to the 
Agency's authorized representative until each affected submitter has 
been furnished notice of the contemplated disclosure by the EPA program 
office and has been afforded a period found reasonable by that office 
(not less than five working days) to submit its comments. Pursuant to 
this Federal Register Notice, comments are limited to the change of 
contractor handling trade secret and confidential information submitted 
under 40 CFR part 350. The new mailing address will soon be announced 
in a Federal Register Notice and also will be posted on the Chemical 
Emergency Preparedness and Prevention Office Web site http://www.epa.gov/ceppo/.

DATES: Comments, identified by the docket control number SFUND-2003-
0002, must be submitted on or before February 11, 2003.

ADDRESSES: Comments may be submitted by mail, electronically, or in 
person. Please follow the detailed instructions for each method as 
provided in Unit III of the Supplementary Information section of this 
notice.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For general information, contact the 
Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Hotline at (800) 424-
9346, TDD (800) 553-7672, http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hotline/. For 
technical information about this change in contractor and location for 
submitting trade secrets, contact: Dorothy McManus, Chemical Emergency 
Preparedness and Prevention Office (5104A), Environmental Protection 
Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Washington DC 20460, Telephone: 
202-564-8606; Fax: 202-564-8222; email: [email protected]. For 
questions on the applicability of provisions contained in 40 CFR part 
350, 40 CFR part 355, and 40 CFR part 370, contact: Sicy Jacob, 
Chemical Emergency Preparedness and Prevention Office (5104A), 
Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., 
Washington DC 20460, Telephone: 202-564-8019; Fax: 202-564-8233; email: 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Does This Notice Apply to Me?

    A. Affected Entities: Entities that will be affected by this 
section are those facilities subject to 40 CFR 355.30 Emergency 
Planning and 40 CFR part 370 Hazardous Chemical Reporting: Community 
Right-to-Know.
    To determine whether your facility is affected by this action, you 
should carefully examine the applicability provisions at 40 CFR part 
350, 40 CFR part 355, and 40 CFR part 370. If you have any questions 
regarding the applicability of this action to a particular entity, 
consult the person(s) listed in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT 
section.

II. How Can I Get Copies of This Document and Other Related 
Information?

    A. Docket: EPA has established an official public docket for this 
action under Docket ID No. SFUND-2003-0002.
    The public docket includes information considered by EPA in 
developing this action, including the documents listed below, which are 
physically located in the docket. In addition, interested parties 
should consult documents that are referenced in the documents that EPA 
has placed in the docket, regardless of whether these referenced 
documents are physically located in the docket. For assistance in 
located documents that are referenced in documents that EPA has placed 
in the docket, but that are not physically located in the docket, 
please consult the person(s) in the preceding FOR FURTHER INFORMATION 
CONTACT section. Although a part of the official docket, the public 
docket does not include Confidential Business Information (CBI) or 
other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. The 
official public docket is the collection of materials that is available 
for public viewing at the EPA Docket Center, (EPA/DC) EPA West, Room 
B102, 1301 Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington DC. The EPA Docket 
Center Public Reading Room is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday 
through Friday, excluding legal holidays. The telephone number for the 
Reading Room is (202) 566-0274.
    B. Electronic Access. You may access this Federal Register document 
electronically through the EPA Internet under the ``Federal Register'' 
listings at http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/.
    An electronic version of the public docket is available through 
EPA's electronic public docket and comment system, EPA Dockets. You may 
use EPA Dockets at http://www.epa.gov/edocket/ to view public comments, 
access the index listing of the contents of the official public docket, 
and to access those documents in the public docket that are available 
electronically. Although not all docket materials may be available 
electronically, you may still access any of the publicly available 
docket materials through the docket facility identified in section 
II.A. of this document. Once in the system, select ``search,'' then key 
in the appropriate docket identification number.

III. How Can I Respond to This Notice?

A. How and to Whom Do I Submit Comments?

    You may submit comments through the mail, in person, or 
electronically. Be sure to identify the appropriate docket control 
number (i.e., SFUND-2003-0002) in your correspondence.
    1. By Mail. All comments should be sent in triplicate to : Chemical 
Emergency Preparedness and Prevention Office, Mail code 5104 A, 
Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Ariel 
Rios Building, Washington DC 20460.
    2. In person or by courier. Comments may be delivered in person or 
by courier to: EPA Docket Center, (EPA/DC) EPA West, Room B102, 1301 
Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington DC 20460. The Docket Center is 
open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding legal 
holidays. The telephone number for the docket is (202) 566-1744.
    3. Electronically. Submit your comments electronically by e-mail 
to: ``[email protected]''. Please note that you should not 
submit any information electronically that you consider to be CBI. 
Electronic comments must be submitted as an ASCII file avoiding the use 
of special characters and any form of encryption. Comments and data 
will also be accepted on standard computer disks in WordPerfect 6.1/8.0 
or ASCII file format. All comments and data in electronic form must be 
identified by the docket control number SFUND-2003-0002. Electronic 
comments on this document may also be filed online at many Federal 
Depository Libraries.

B. How Should I Handle CBI Information That I Want To Submit to the 
Agency?

    All comments which contain information claimed as CBI must be 
clearly marked as such. Three sanitized copies of any comments 
containing information claimed as CBI must also be submitted and will 
be placed in the public record for this document. Persons submitting 
information on any portion of which they believe is entitled to 
treatment as CBI by EPA must assert a business confidentiality claim in

[[Page 6151]]

accordance with 40 CFR 2.203(b) for each such portion. This claim must 
be made at the time that the information is submitted to EPA. If a 
submitter does not assert a confidentiality claim at the time of 
submission, EPA will consider this as a waiver of any confidentiality 
claim and the information may be made available to the public by EPA 
without further notice to the submitter.

IV. What Is the General Background for This Action?

    The Emergency Planning Notification (codified in 40 CFR part 355) 
and the Hazadous Chemical Reporting (codified in 40 CFR part 370) are 
mandated by the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 
1986 (EPCRA). EPCRA established a program designed to require state and 
local planning and preparedness for spills or releases of hazardous 
substances and to provide the public and local governments with 
information concerning potential chemical hazards in their communities. 
Under EPCRA section 303, (codified in 40 CFR part 355) a facility which 
has present an Extremely Hazardous Substance in excess of its threshold 
planning quantity (TPQ) must notify the State emergency response 
commission and local emergency planning committee as well as 
participate in local emergency planning activities. Under EPCRA 
sections 311 and 312, (codified in 40 CFR part 370), a facility is 
required to submit an inventory of hazardous chemicals present at their 
site at or above the specified threshold quantities.
    Under section 322 of EPCRA (codified in 40 CFR part 350), 
facilities submitting reports under sections 303, 311 and 312 of EPCRA, 
may be eligible to claim Trade Secret for the specific chemical 
identity of the extremely hazardous substance or the hazardous chemical 
being reported. Pursuant to 40 CFR 350.23 (``Disclosure to authorized 
representatives''), information entitled to trade secret or 
confidential treatment may not be disclosed by the Agency to the 
Agency's authorized representative until each affected submitter has 
been furnished notice of the contemplated disclosure by the EPA program 
office and has been afforded a period found reasonable by that office 
(not less than five working days) to submit its comments. Such notice 
shall include a description of the information to be disclosed, the 
identity of the contractor, subcontractor, or grantee, the contract, 
subcontract, or grant number, if any, and the purposes to be served by 
the disclosure. This notice may be published in the Federal Register or 
may be sent to individual submitters.
    The contract to manage the trade secret submissions under sections 
303, 311, 312 and 313 was recompeted in 1998 and was awarded to the 
Computer Based Systems Incorporated, now known as Titan Systems, Inc. 
This contract ended on January 31, 2003. The new contract was 
transitioned to Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) (GSA Contract 
GSOOT99ALD0203) at the end of December 2002. This new facility is 
located in New Carrollton, MD. All trade secret submissions for 
sections 303, 311, 312 and 313 pursuant to 40 CFR part 350 will be 
managed by CSC. (See 67 FR 65566, Oct. 25, 2002, for notice authorized 
representative to receive claims of trade secrecy under EPCRA section 
313.)
    In accordance with 40 CFR 350.23, EPA has determined that CSC and 
their subcontractors require access to trade secret and confidential 
information submitted under 40 CFR part 350 in order to receive, 
manage, process, and safely store such information. The contractor's 
and subcontractor's personnel will be required to sign a 
``Confidentiality Agreement'' prior to being permitted access to trade 
secret and confidential information submitted under 40 CFR part 350. 
All contractor and subcontractor access to trade secrets and 
confidential information filed for sections 303, 311, 312 and 313 of 
EPCRA will take place at the contractor's facility in New Carrollton, 
MD. The contractor will have appropriate procedures and facilities in 
place to safeguard these trade secrets and confidential information 
submissions to which the contractor and subcontractors have access 
during the term of this contract.

    Dated: February 3, 2003.
Deborah Y. Dietrich,
Director, Chemical Emergency Preparedness and Prevention Office.
[FR Doc. 03-3062 Filed 2-5-03; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-P