Yesterday the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) submitted their
final rule for the 2013 Critical Use Exemption from the Phaseout of Methyl
Bromide to OMB. This
rule will authorize the use of methyl bromide for critical agricultural
uses that are exempted from the provisions of the Montreal Protocol on
Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. The production and use of methyl
bromide was supposed to have been phased out in 2005, but there are protected
agricultural uses of the material that are re-authorized every year because
there are no effective substitutes.
As is typical for the EPA in this annual exercise, this
final rule will not be published until well after the 2013 production and use
of methyl bromide has already started. Back in December, recognizing that they
would not fulfill their regulatory obligation in time for the spring
application of methyl bromide, the EPA published a letter
notifying the manufacturers and users of methyl bromide that the EPA would “exercise
its enforcement discretion not to pursue enforcement for violations of 40 CFR §82.4
against companies” identified in the NPRM published in December 2012.
Long time readers of this blog will undoubtedly remember (I’ve
reminded them enough times) that the DHS chemicals of interest (COI) list for
the CFATS program had methyl bromide removed from the proposed list because
they believed EPA when it said that methyl bromide was being phased out. This
toxic inhalation hazard (TIH) chemical would normally have been included on the
COI list because of its toxic characteristics. This means that three of the
four manufacturer/importers of methyl bromide and an indeterminate number of
distributors are not required to report their inventories in excess of 10,000 lbs
of the material to DHS under the CFATS program.
Once again I would like to suggest that DHS, as part of
their on-going review of the COI list in Appendix A to 6 CFR Part 27, actively
consider adding methyl bromide back to the list.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment