Summary of EPA Meeting with SOCMA

July 26, 2007

On Thursday, July 26, 2007, Definition of Solid Waste team members from
the Office of Solid Waste (OSW) met with representatives from the
Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association (SOCMA). SOCMA
began the meeting by expressing great satisfaction with EPA’s
proposal, particularly with the preamble’s “excellent
presentation” and discussion. The conversation then focused on
SOCMA’s primary comments regarding the proposed rule. 

SOCMA recommended EPA clarify terminology for the control of the
generator exclusion, for example, using “toll manufacturer” versus
the broader term “batch manufacturer” and clarifying that a toll
contractor can arrange for production of both a product and an
intermediate. They also suggested substituting the term “raw
materials” with a term that includes unused materials. Moreover, SOCMA
recommended EPA add discussion to the preamble that explicitly describes
the type of contract arrangements included under “tolling
arrangements” as relevant to the exclusion.  

SOCMA then spoke to the usefulness of the ‘under control of the
generator’ exclusion to its members, particularly for intra-company
recycling. However, SOCMA cautioned EPA from requiring a specific type
of contract as a condition of the exclusion since there is considerable
diversity among contracts due to the complexity of each industry. SOCMA
also explained the difficulty of obtaining acknowledgement from a parent
company to assume responsibility for safe management of hazardous
secondary materials for two subsidiaries due to the general law of
limited corporate liability. An alternative, SOCMA suggests, would have
the two subsidiaries certify they are under common ownership. SOCMA also
suggests defining “generating facility” as property “owned or
operated” to cover those entities operating under leases.

Regarding legitimacy, SOCMA stressed the importance of case-by-case
determinations due to the variability of recycling scenarios. They also
encouraged EPA to maintain flexibility when considering economics in
legitimacy determinations and specifically recognize in preamble
discussion that generators can pay to have materials recycled and still
be legitimately recycling. 

Although understanding to EPA’s desire to measure impacts of the rule,
SOCMA discourages any reporting that would increase paperwork burden on
facilities. Instead, SOCMA would prefer a survey or ICR that focuses on
measuring recycling as means of pollution prevention or waste
minimization. 

Finally, SOCMA expressed contentment with keeping notifications in one
electronic database, particularly for the added advantage of seeing who
else is recycling under the exemption. However, SOCMA is concerned by
any addition to the final rule that would require facilities to update
their notification on a per batch basis or to “pre-notify” ahead of
time as many times facilities have no way of knowing what the market
will demand in the future.

Meeting Attendees:

Bob Dellinger	EPA	Jeff Gunnulfsen	SOCMA

Betsy Devlin	EPA	Janet Weller	Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

Tracy Atagi	EPA	Daniel Moss	SOCMA

Marilyn Goode	EPA	Sarah Mechum	SOCMA

Amanda Geldard	EPA





