CSB Resubmits Accidental Spill Reporting ICR

Yesterday the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had received an information collection request (ICR) submission from the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) for the new Accidental Release Reporting requirements of 40 CFR 1604 that was approved in February. This is apparently a follow-up action to the OIRA assignment of an OMB Control number to the ICR that I reported upon yesterday.

The announcement includes a link [.PDF download link] to a draft version of the reporting form that the CSB is recommending that submitters use in the reporting process. That form also provides the phone number (202-261-7600) and email address (report@csb.gov) that can be used to complete the reporting process.

Commentary

The CSB cannot legally require submission of the reporting information until OIRA approves this ICR, but presumably would accept voluntary reports at either of those two points of contact provided in the draft reporting form.

Typically, an ICR submission like this would be proceeded by the publication of a 30-day ICR notice in the Federal Register. In yesterday’s submission, the CSB is relying on the 30-day notice that was included in the December 2020 notice of proposed rulemaking and was used as the basis for Thursday’s actions by OIRA. I am not sure that OIRA will accept that or require the CSB to resubmit this after the publication of a new 30-day ICR notice. There is also a possibility that OIRA could require the CSB to start the process from scratch with a 60-day ICR notice since (because of timing issues) there was never a 60-day ICR notice published for this collection.