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EPA finalizes amendment to hazardous chemical regulations (US)
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EPA Finalizes Amendment of Community Right-to-Know Hazardous Chemical Reporting and Hazard Categories.
On June 13, 2016 the U.S. EPA finalized its amendment to hazardous chemical regulations under the sections 311 and 312 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA).
The purpose of this amendment is to conform the EPCRA reporting requirements with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Hazard Communication Standard (HCS), which itself was recently revised to conform to the United Nationals Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS).
Under the revised HCS, chemical manufacturers and importers are required to evaluate their chemicals according to the new criteria adopted from GHS in order to ensure that they are classified and labeled appropriately. Based on the new classification criteria that OSHA adopted, EPA is revising the existing hazard categories for hazardous chemical inventory form reporting under EPCRA section 312 and for list reporting under section 311.
Currently, the term “hazard category” under the EPCRA is the consolidation of OSHA’s 23 original hazard categories into five categories. The new categories following OSHA’s HCS will be divided into two types of hazards:
- (1) physical hazards: flammable, gas under pressure, explosive, self-heating, pyrophoric, oxidizer, organic peroxide, self-reactive, pyrophoric gas, corrosive to metal, in contact with water emits flammable gas, combustible dust, and hazard not otherwise classified (HNOC);
- and (2) health hazards: carcinogenicity, acute toxicity, reproductive toxicity, skin corrosion or irritation, respiratory or skin sensitization, serious eye damage or eye irritation, specific target organ toxicity, aspiration hazard, germ cell mutagenicity, simple asphyxiant, and HNOC.
These new categories will be on both Tier I and Tier II inventory forms and the Safety Data Sheets (SDS) for emergency planners.
EPA will be modifying its Tier2 Submit software to include the new categories. For states that have their own reporting software for section 312, their software must be modified by January 1, 2018.
Facilities are required to comply with reporting the new physical and health hazards on their Tier II inventory form for reporting year 2017, by March 1, 2018.
In the meantime, EPA is encouraging facilities to provide the most accurate information available on potential hazards of each chemical at their facility to the State Emergency Response Commissions (SERC), Local Emergency Planning Committees (LEPC), and the local fire department with jurisdiction over the facility.
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