EPCRA

Scope

EPCRA generally requires:

• Facility owners or operators to report on the storage, use, and releases of hazardous substances to federal, state, and local governments.
• State and local governments and Indian tribes to use this information to prepare for and protect their communities from potential risks.

Regulatory citations

• 40 CFR 350 — Trade secrecy claims for emergency planning and community right-to-know information and trade secret disclosures to health professionals
• 40 CFR 355 — Emergency planning and notification
• 40 CFR 370 — Hazardous chemical reporting: Community right-to-know
• 40 CFR 372 — Toxic chemical release reporting: Community right-to-know
• 42 U.S.C. 11001-11050 — Emergency planning and community right-to-know

Key definitions

• CERCLA: The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980, as amended.
• CERCLA hazardous substance: A substance defined in Section 101(14) of CERCLA and listed in Table 302.4 of 40 CFR 302.4.
• Environment: Includes water, air, and land and the interrelationship that exists among and between water, air, and land and all living things.
• EPCRA: The Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act of 1986. This Act is also known as Title III of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act or SARA Title III.
• Establishment: An economic unit, generally at a single physical location, where business is conducted or where services or industrial operations are performed.
• Extremely hazardous substance (EHS): A substance listed in Appendices A and B of 40 CFR 355.
• Facility: All buildings, equipment, structures, and other stationary items that are located on a single site or on contiguous or adjacent sites and that are owned or operated by the same person (or by any person that controls, is controlled by, or under common control with, such person). Facility includes manmade structures, as well as all-natural structures in which chemicals are purposefully placed or removed through human means such that it functions as a containment structure for human use. For purposes of emergency release notification at 40 CFR 355, the term includes motor vehicles, rolling stock, and aircraft. For the purposes of 40 CFR 372, a facility may contain more than one establishment.
• Hazardous chemical: Any hazardous chemical as defined under 29 CFR 1910.1200(c), except that this term does not include: (1) Any food, food additive, color additive, drug, or cosmetic regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. (2) Any substance present as a solid in any manufactured item to the extent exposure to the substance does not occur under normal conditions of use. (3) Any substance to the extent it is used: (i) For personal, family, or household purposes, or is present in the same form and concentration as a product packaged for distribution and use by the general public. Present in the same form and concentration as a product packaged for distribution and use by the general public means a substance packaged in a similar manner and present in the same concentration as the substance when packaged for use by the general public, whether or not it is intended for distribution to the general public or used for the same purpose as when it is packaged for use by the general public; (ii) In a research laboratory or hospital or other medical facility under the direct supervision of a technically qualified individual; or (iii) In routine agricultural operations or is a fertilizer held for sale by a retailer to the ultimate customer.
• Import: To cause a chemical to be imported into the customs territory of the United States. For purposes of this definition, “to cause” means to intend that the chemical be imported and to control the identity of the imported chemical and the amount to be imported.
• LEPC: The Local Emergency Planning Committee appointed by the State Emergency Response Commission.
• Manufacture: To produce, prepare, import, or compound a toxic chemical. Manufacture also applies to a toxic chemical that is produced coincidentally during the manufacture, processing, use, or disposal of another chemical or mixture of chemicals, including a toxic chemical that is separated from that other chemical or mixture of chemicals as a byproduct, and a toxic chemical that remains in that other chemical or mixture of chemicals as an impurity.
• Material Safety Data Sheet or MSDS (or SDS): The sheet required to be developed under 29 CFR 1910.1200(g).
• Mixture:
  • For the purposes of 40 CFR 355, a heterogeneous association of substances where the various individual substances retain their identities and can usually be separated by mechanical means. This definition includes solutions but does not include alloys or amalgams.
  • For the purposes of 40 CFR 372, any combination of two or more chemicals, if the combination is not, in whole or in part, the result of a chemical reaction. However, if the combination was produced by a chemical reaction but could have been produced without a chemical reaction, it is also treated as a mixture. A mixture also includes any combination which consists of a chemical and associated impurities.
• Safety Data Sheet or SDS: The sheet required to be developed under 29 CFR 1910.1200(g). This term has the same meaning as the term “material safety data sheet or MSDS.”
• Otherwise use: Any use of a toxic chemical, including a toxic chemical contained in a mixture or other trade name product or waste, that is not covered by the terms “manufacture” or “process.” Otherwise use of a toxic chemical does not include disposal, stabilization (without subsequent distribution in commerce), or treatment for destruction unless: (1) The toxic chemical that was disposed, stabilized, or treated for destruction was received from off-site for the purposes of further waste management; or (2) The toxic chemical that was disposed, stabilized, or treated for destruction was manufactured as a result of waste management activities on materials received from off-site for the purposes of further waste management activities. Relabeling or redistributing of the toxic chemical where no repackaging of the toxic chemical occurs does not constitute otherwise use or processing of the toxic chemical.
• Process: The preparation of a toxic chemical, after its manufacture, for distribution in commerce: (1) In the same form or physical state as, or in a different form or physical state from, that in which it was received by the person so preparing such substance, or (2) As part of an article containing the toxic chemical. Process also applies to the processing of a toxic chemical contained in a mixture or trade name product. Relabeling or redistributing of the toxic chemical where no repackaging of the toxic chemical occurs does not constitute otherwise use or processing of the toxic chemical.
• Release:
  • For the purposes of 40 CFR 355, any spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, discharging, injecting, escaping, leaching, dumping, or disposing into the environment (including the abandonment or discarding of barrels, containers, and other closed receptacles) of any hazardous chemical, EHS, or CERCLA hazardous substance.
  • For the purposes of 40 CFR 372, any spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, discharging, injecting, escaping, leaching, dumping, or disposing into the environment (including the abandonment or discarding of barrels, containers, and other closed receptacles) of any toxic chemical.
• Reportable quantity:
  • For any CERCLA hazardous substance, the quantity established in Table 302.4 of 40 CFR 302.4, for such substance.
  • For any EHS, the quantity established in Appendices A and B of 40 CFR 355 for such substance. Unless and until superseded by regulations establishing a reportable quantity for newly listed EHSs or CERCLA hazardous substances, a weight of 1 pound shall be the reportable quantity.
• SERC: The State Emergency Response Commission for the state in which the facility is located except where the facility is located in Indian Country, in which case, SERC means the Emergency Response Commission for the Tribe under whose jurisdiction the facility is located. In the absence of a SERC for a state or Indian Tribe, the governor or the chief executive officer of the tribe, respectively, shall be the SERC. Where there is a cooperative agreement between a state and a Tribe, the SERC shall be the entity identified in the agreement.
• Threshold planning quantity (TPQ): For a substance listed in Appendices A and B of 40 CFR 355, the quantity listed in the column “threshold planning quantity” for that substance.
• Toxic chemical: A chemical or chemical category listed in 40 CFR 372.65.
• Trade secret: Any confidential formula, pattern, process, device, information or compilation of information that is used in a submitter’s business, and that gives the submitter an opportunity to obtain an advantage over competitors who do not know or use it. EPA intends to be guided by the Restatement of Torts, Section 757, Comment b.

Summary of requirements

• Emergency planning (EPCRA Sections 301 to 303 and regulation 40 CFR 355):
  • Local governments are required to prepare chemical emergency response plans and to review plans at least annually.
  • State governments are required to oversee and coordinate local planning efforts.
  • Owners or operators of facilities that maintain EHS onsite in quantities equal to or greater than corresponding TPQs must cooperate in emergency plan preparation and provide the required information.
• Emergency notification (EPCRA Section 304 and regulation 40 CFR 355):
  • Owners or operators of facilities must immediately report accidental releases of EHSs and CERCLA-defined hazardous substances.
  • Owners or operators of facilities must report to state and local officials any releases of these substances in quantities equal to or greater than their corresponding RQs. Note: The continuous release reporting regulation offers reduced reporting options under CERCLA Section 103(a) and regulation 40 CFR 302.8 for facilities that release hazardous substances in a manner that is continuous, and stable in quantity and rate. This reduced reporting is also applicable to releases of EHSs under EPCRA Section 304.
• SDS reporting and Tier II reporting (EPCRA Sections 311 and 312 and regulation 40 CFR 370):
  • Owners or operators of facilities handling or storing any hazardous chemicals must submit:
    • Material safety data sheets (MSDSs) (or safety data sheets (SDSs)) or a list of facility non-exempted hazardous chemicals, to state and local officials and local fire departments.
    • Submit to state and local officials and local fire departments by March 1, a Tier II chemical inventory form (or state equivalent form) for non-exempted hazardous chemicals, if the hazardous chemicals are present at any one time at the facility in an amount equal to or greater than their threshold levels during the preceding calendar year.
• Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) (EPCRA Section 313 and regulation 40 CFR 372):
  • Owners or operators of covered facilities must complete and submit a toxic chemical release inventory form (Form R or Form A) annually. The form must be submitted for each of the over 800 TRI chemicals and chemical categories that are manufactured, processed, or otherwise used above the applicable threshold quantities at the facility.
• Trade secrets (EPCRA Section 322 and regulation 40 CFR 350):
  • Facilities may withhold the specific chemical identity from the reports filed under EPCRA Sections 303, 311, 312 and 313 if the facilities submit a claim with substantiation to EPA.