VIA E-MAIL

April 13, 2010

Mr. Jeffrey A. Telander

Sector Policies and Programs Division

Metals and Minerals Group (D243-02)

Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

109 TW Alexander Drive

Research Triangle Park, NC  27711

Mr. William Neuffer

Sector Policies and Programs Division

Metals and Minerals Group (D243-02)

Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

109 TW Alexander Drive 

Research Triangle Park, NC  27711

 

RE:	CBI and Related Issues in Enclosure 1 of ICR

Dear Messrs. Telander and Neuffer:

The North American Insulation Manufacturers Association (“NAIMA”)
appreciates the opportunity to discuss with the Environmental Protection
Agency (“EPA”) specific questions set forth in Enclosure 1 of the
draft Information Collection Request (“ICR”).  The modification or
removal of some of these questions would help to expedite the ICR
process.  Set forth below are the questions that NAIMA would like to
discuss with EPA.

The specific objections set forth in this letter share two elements:
first, the relevance of these requests to residual risk or emissions of
hazardous air pollutants (“HAPs”) is not evident and an explanation
is merited; and second, the information requested, in most cases, needs
to be treated as confidential business information (“CBI”).  Even
where some of this data can be treated as CBI, NAIMA offers alternatives
that can be equally effective in meeting EPA’s needs while providing
more rigorous protection to sensitive trade information.

ENCLOSURE 1

Form A-2

EPA asks for the number of employees attached to a manufacturing
facility.  The number of employees is not relevant to residual risk. 
Therefore, the non-public companies should not be burdened with
supplying this information.  Moreover, the number of employees is
sensitive/confidential information because the number of employees would
plainly speak to the level of ongoing production.  It is also
confidential business information.  The disclosure of this information
is even more troubling because the data would most likely be inaccurate.
 Production is down throughout the industry and any numbers given to EPA
would not accurately reflect typical production level employment. 
Therefore, the information would not only be irrelevant to residual
risk, but would also not provide an accurate depiction of company
employment in a healthy economy.  If EPA is concerned about exposure to
HAPs in the workplace, NAIMA can authoritatively state that no employee
receives any exposure in excess of the applicable Occupational Safety
and Health Administration (“OSHA”) limit.  NAIMA and its members
have a history of responsible product stewardship as an industry and as
individual companies.  EPA’s residual risk process and MACT standard
setting are appropriately concerned with releases to the ambient air,
not OSHA-regulated work spaces.  Thus, the number of workers is
irrelevant and NAIMA requests that the question on employees be removed
from the ICR.

	Form B-2

EPA requests a list of raw materials and binder ingredients and the
proportion of each of those ingredients.  The specific and detailed
proportions used by each manufacturer are a carefully guarded trade
secret.  Historically, NAIMA has provided regulatory bodies an
aggregated average of the percentage of product formulas from data
collected by legal counsel.  This approach ensures EPA will know the
identity of the constituents without a proprietary list of detailed
proportions.  This approach has eliminated the risk of disclosing unique
trade secrets to a third party and avoids the need for the Agency to
take on the burden of managing confidential business information where
inadvertent disclosure may occur.  This approach also provides EPA with
information it needs – a list of the raw materials that go into
product formulations and an accurate estimate of the proportion of each
raw material ingredient.

	Form B-1, B-3, and B-4

NAIMA requests the “estimated remaining lifetime” and other rebuild
information be removed from the list of requested information.  This
information is not relevant to residual risk.  Fiber glass insulation
furnace rebuilds, though routine, are infrequent.  At the end of a
furnace’s lifecycle and during the subsequent furnace rebuild,
refractory linings are removed and replaced.  Certain repairs during a
furnace’s lifecycle may also necessitate the removal and/or
replacement of refractories, but such repairs are not furnace rebuilds. 
Furnace and melter refractory rebricking is crucial to maintaining a
safe and reliable facility.  Refractory lining replacement is driven
largely by two inherent characteristics of the manufacturing process –
the high heat (approximately 2500 degrees Fahrenheit) and the alkaline
glass chemistry required to produce the molten glass that is used to
manufacture fiber glass insulation.  Other factors that affect the
frequency of rebuilds include the size of the furnace, firing (gas/oxy,
electric, etc.), the intensity of operations, and the corrosiveness of
the glass melt.  Ultimately, the furnace refractory bricks are eroded
during normal operation of the facility and must be routinely replaced. 
Information concerning each member’s planned furnace rebuild dates is
proprietary, confidential business information.

Mineral wool companies do not use chrome-containing refractories to
rebuild cupolas as in the fiber glass industry; however, the liner of
the cupola may be replaced.

	Form B-8

EPA asks for a description of “any work practices, pollution
prevention techniques, and control strategies evaluated and/or
implemented at each process unit at your facility . . . you must specify
the year in which the facility implemented the practice.”  There are
no legal requirements to maintain records at the level of detail
requested by EPA.  Therefore, to request such extensive information is
onerous and burdensome.  NAIMA and its member companies are shouldering
a significant burden to respond to the legitimate data requests.  It is
unreasonable to impose such time-intensive exercises on the companies at
this time.  NAIMA requests that EPA modify the question to allow the
companies to provide information regarding work practices, pollution
prevention techniques, and control strategies that have actually been
implemented and that is available and responsive to the question.  In
addition, it seems the question on Form B-8 is repetitive of questions
on Forms B-3 through B-6.

Form C

On Forms C-1, C-2, C-3, C-4, and C-7, EPA asks for the amount and method
of wastewater and waste disposal.  The vast majority of wool fiberglass
and mineral wool manufacturers do not discharge wastewater that contains
or has been in contact with binder.  That water is recycled in the
production process.  The recycling system does not involve storing
wastewater in open reservoirs or collection ponds.  The closed-loop
systems, and in some facilities the holding tanks, are housed under the
roof of the manufacturing facility where any emissions would likely be
drawn into the collection stack and be counted with those emissions.  As
such, there are no binder-related air emissions from ponds.  There may
be small levels of emissions from the holding tanks associated with this
closed loop system.  Further, it is typical for the holding tank units
to include lids.  In other words, the likelihood of HAPs being released
from these wastewater systems is limited.  Under these conditions, the
relevance of wastewater discharges to a determination of residual risk
from air pollutant emissions is not apparent.  If EPA is concerned about
water pollution, it should not be explored in a Clean Air Act-related
ICR.

Form F

EPA requests highly sensitive cost, sales, and profit data that has no
relevance to residual risk.  Moreover, sales and profit data have no
relation to emissions.  Sales and profit data relate to economic
conditions.  In other words, it is possible for a facility to have a
high profit margin and healthy sales and very low emissions, and in
another year that same company could have low profits and sales and yet
have higher emissions than previous years.  NAIMA strongly objects to
providing EPA with sales, profit, and cost data because it is not
relevant to residual risk, emissions, or EPA’s mandate to regulate air
emissions.  In addition, it is confidential business information. 
Moreover, much of the cost information requested by EPA is not data that
companies would possess.  Most accounting systems used in the industry
do not have the details requested by EPA.  Most companies within the
industry do not maintain its records in a manner that would allow this
data to be readily extracted.  The effort to supply EPA with relevant
data and information will require considerable time and resources.  It
is not equitable or prudent to divert those resources into areas that
will not produce any data relevant to an assessment of residual risk. 
Therefore, NAIMA requests that these questions relating to sales,
profit, and costs be removed from the ICR.

As the wool fiberglass and mineral wool industries proceed with the
completion of the ICR, there may be additional inquires and requests for
clarification.  Therefore, NAIMA reserves the right to raise additional
issues in the future.  NAIMA also seeks clarification on how to handle
electronic filing of CBI.

Sincerely,

Angus E. Crane

Angus E. Crane

Executive Vice President, General Counsel

 NAIMA, “NAIMA’s Health and Safety Partnership Program,” Pub. No.
NO30, 12/02; G.E. Marchant, et al., “A Synthetic Vitreous Fiber (SVF)
Occupational Exposure Database: Implementing the SVF Health and Safety
Partnership Program,” Applied Occupational and Environment Hygiene,
17(4): 276-285, 2002.

 See Generally Fay V. Tooley, The Handbook of Glass Manufacture § 7 (3d
ed. 1984).

Messrs. Jeffrey A. Telander and William Neuffer

April 13, 2010

Page   PAGE  4 

 

%

C

D

E

F

I

J

K

ü

û

ü

ᜀ▪  Suite 310  ▪  Alexandria, Virginia  22314  ▪  Tel: (703)
684-0084  ▪  Fax: (703) 684-0427

