[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 67 (Tuesday, April 7, 2020)]
[Notices]
[Pages 19473-19474]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-07193]
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
[FRL-10007-05-OLEM; EPA-HQ-OLEM-2019-0589]
Existing Comprehensive Procurement Guideline Designations and
Recovered Materials Advisory Notice Recommendations: Request for
Comments
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Notice and request for comments.
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SUMMARY: Buying products with recycled content fosters the diversion of
materials from the solid waste stream and promotes the use of these
materials in the manufacture of new products, strengthening the United
States' recycling system. Congress required the issuance of procurement
guidelines in Section 6002 of the Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act (RCRA). Section 6002 requires the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA or the Agency) to designate items that are or can be made with
recovered materials and to recommend practices for procurement of such
items. EPA has designated 61 items in eight product categories in a
Comprehensive Procurement Guideline (CPG) and has issued recycled-
content recommendations and procurement specifications for these items
in a series of Recovered Materials Advisory Notices (RMANs) published
in the Federal Register. EPA last updated the CPG/RMANs in 2007. Today,
the Agency is seeking comment concerning the list of CPG-designated
items and recommendations issued in the associated RMANs.
DATES: Comments must be received on or before July 6, 2020.
ADDRESSES: You may send comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-
OLEM-2019-0589, by any of the following methods:
Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov/
(our preferred method). Follow the online instructions for submitting
comments.
Mail: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Docket
Center, OLEM Docket, Mail Code 28221T, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW,
Washington, DC 20460.
Hand Delivery/Courier: EPA Docket Center, WJC West
Building, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004.
The Docket Center's hours of operations are 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.,
Monday-Friday (except Federal Holidays).
Instructions: All submissions received must include the Docket ID
No. for this action, EPA-HQ-OLEM-2019-0589. Comments received may be
posted without change to https://www.regulations.gov/, including any
personal information provided. For detailed instructions on sending
comments and additional information, see the ``Public Participation''
heading of the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this document.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ksenija Janjic, Resource Conservation
and Sustainability Division, Office of Resource Conservation and
Recovery (5306P), Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania
Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20460; telephone number: (703) 347-0376;
email address: [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background
Section 6002 of the Solid Waste Disposal Act, as amended by the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA) and the Hazardous
and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984, established the government ``buy-
recycled'' program that seeks to harness the federal purchasing power
to stimulate the demand for products made with recovered materials. The
statute requires EPA to issue guidelines to be used by procuring
agencies to buy products with recovered material content. Section
1004(17) defines ``procuring agency'' to include any Federal or State
agency using appropriated Federal funds for a procurement as well as
any person contracting with any such agency with respect to work
performed under the contract. The EPA must designate items that are or
can be made with recovered materials and must also recommend practices
to assist procuring agencies in meeting their obligations. Once an item
is designated by EPA, procuring agencies that use appropriated federal
funds to purchase the item are required to purchase the item composed
of the highest percentage of recovered materials practicable.
Within one year after EPA designates a CPG item, federal agencies
must revise their procurement specifications to require the use of
recovered materials to the maximum extent possible without jeopardizing
the intended end-use of the item (Section 6002(d)(2)). Federal agencies
responsible for drafting or reviewing specifications must also review
all their product specifications to eliminate both provisions
prohibiting the use of recovered materials and requirements specifying
the exclusive use of virgin materials (Section 6002(d)(1)). For each
item designated by EPA, procuring agencies are further required to
develop an affirmative procuring program, which sets forth the agency's
policies and procedures for implementing the requirements of RCRA
section 6002 (Section 6002(i)). Finally, the Office of Federal
Procurement Policy must implement the statute requirements and
coordinate the purchasing policy with other federal procurement
policies in order to maximize the use of recovered materials (Section
6002(g)).
Executive Order (E.O.) 12873, entitled ``Federal Acquisition,
Recycling, and Waste Prevention'' established a bifurcated, two-part
process for EPA to use when developing and issuing the procurement
guidelines for items containing recovered materials, as required by
RCRA section 6002(e). The first part, the Comprehensive Procurement
Guideline (CPG), involved designating items that are or can be made
with recovered materials, which is an activity requiring a rulemaking,
including the formal notice-and-comment rulemaking procedures. CPGs are
therefore, codified in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). The
second part involves issuing recommendations to procuring agencies on
purchasing the items designated in CPGs. These recommendations are
issued in Recovered Materials Advisory Notices (RMANs) and published in
the notice section of the Federal Register (FR) for public comment but
are not codified in the Code of Federal Regulations.
[[Page 19474]]
Subsequent E.O.s continued to require the preferred purchasing of
recycled content products, as required by statutory mandates. Between
1995 and 2007, EPA issued five CPGs designating 61 items in eight
distinct product categories. With each group of proposed items, EPA
also published recommendations on purchasing designated items in RMANs.
The recommendations published in the RMANs were developed based on
information on commercially available items with recovered materials
and their associated specifications.
The process established in E.O. 12873 that provides for publication
of an RMAN in the FR for public comment without its being codified in
the Code of Federal Regulations, fulfills the statutory intent and
requirements of RCRA Section 6002. Procuring agencies can obtain
information on the availability and sourcing of designated items for
use in developing procurement programs to meet their obligations under
the statute. Furthermore, because the established process is more
flexible than a rulemaking process, RMAN can be issued more
expeditiously as well as revised easily to reflect development of new
technologies and/or changes in commercial availability of items.
II. Request for Comment
Today, EPA requests comments on the existing five CPGs and the five
corresponding RMANs. These five CPGs and RMANs pertain to 61 items in
the following eight product categories:
Paper and Paper Products;
Vehicular Products;
Construction Products;
Transportation Products;
Park and Recreation Products;
Landscaping Products;
Non-paper Office Products; and,
Miscellaneous Products.
A. Topic Areas
EPA is seeking comment, relating to the following topics:
Topic 1: Designated Items
Based on procuring agencies purchases, are the right items
designated?
Do the items currently designated represent items that
procuring agencies purchase?
Should items be deleted, added or modified? Why?
Topic 2: Recommendations for the Designated Items Including
Recovered Material Content and Specifications
Are the recommended recovered content levels/ranges
appropriate?
[cir] If not, please provide appropriate levels.
Are the specifications published in RMANs appropriate?
[cir] If not, please provide appropriate specifications.
Commenters should provide ample justification and background
information for their comments in order to ensure appropriate
consideration of the commenter's recommendations.
B. Where To Find Documents
The individual FR notices that were published to designate the CPG
items and provide RMAN recommendations, as well as the supporting
technical information, can be accessed from the table entitled Federal
Register Notices Related to the Guidelines for Procurement of Products
Containing Recovered Materials, at https://www.epa.gov/smm/regulatory-background-comprehensive-procurement-guideline-program-cpg. Existing
notices are also available under Docket Details for this Docket, ID No.
EPA-HQ-OLEM-2019-0589, at https://www.regulations.gov.
III. Public Participation
Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OLEM-2019-
0589, at https://www.regulations.gov (our preferred method), or the
other methods identified in the ADDRESSES section. Once submitted,
comments cannot be edited or removed from the docket. The EPA may
publish any comment received to its public docket. Do not submit
electronically any information you consider to be Confidential Business
Information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is restricted
by statute. Multimedia submissions (audio, video, etc.) must be
accompanied by a written comment. The written comment is considered the
official comment and should include discussion of all points you wish
to make. The EPA will generally not consider comments or comment
contents located outside of the primary submission (i.e. on the web,
cloud, or other file sharing system). For additional submission
methods, the full EPA public comment policy, information about CBI or
multimedia submissions, and general guidance on making effective
comments, please visit https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets. For example, commenters should provide ample justification and
background information for their comments to ensure appropriate
consideration of the commenter's views.
IV. Follow-Up Actions
The EPA plans to review all comments received and determine next
steps. Any future revisions to the CPG or RMANs will be noticed in the
Federal Register. Action with respect to a CPG will be made through the
notice-and-comment rulemaking. EPA will also make every attempt to
alert the public when an action is forthcoming via multiple official
social media platforms.
Dated: March 31, 2020.
Peter Wright,
Assistant Administrator, Office of Land and Emergency Management.
[FR Doc. 2020-07193 Filed 4-6-20; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-P