EPAWATCH Delay expected for rule exempting hazardous wastes A much-anticipated final rule that would allow certain hazardous lowlevel wastes to be disposed of as solid waste will very likely be delayed, agency officials said. The highly controversial Hazardous Waste Identification Rule (HWIR), proposed in December 1995 {ES&T, Jan. 1996, p. 11A), was to be finalized in February under a court-ordered deadline resulting from a lawsuit brought by the Environmental Technology Council (ETC), a trade group representing the hazardous waste treatment industry. Several other industry groups, including the Chemical Manufacturers Association, sued EPA over the rulemaking. A meeting of industry and EPA officials was scheduled in November to discuss me extension. The proposed HWIR sets socalled exit levels for 376 hazardous waste constituents regulated under Subtide C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. If an industrial generator is able to determine that the constituents in the waste, after having been recycled or otherwise manipulated, meet the exit level, then the waste can be handled as nonhazardous under less stringent handling and disposal rules. The concept of allowing wastes to "exit" Subtide C regulation has been under fire since 1980, when EPA proposed the mixture and derived-from rule. After many court decisions and congressional action, that rule must be revised as part of the HWIR rulemaking. Waste generators generally welcome any rule that allows wastes to fall out of the stringent Subtitle C, but they worry that the new rule might be more complex than the original. ETC members, joined by environmental groups, view the exit concept as a relaxation of hazardous waste regulations, which they oppose. After the HWIR was proposed, a Science Advisory Board (SAB) review of the risk assessment used to sup-
For the first time, EPA withdraws from state-run emissions trading program Massachusetts^ emissions reduction credit trading program for nitrogen oxides (1\I0X) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) received final agency approval in October. The action was cheered by the state's business interests already on board with the program, who said EPA approval will cut regulatory delays and transaction costs associated with federal oversight of a state-run program. Modeled after the Clean Air Act's acid rain program for utilities, the Massachusetts scheme is designed to reduce ozone. It is open to utilities, manufacturers, and company vehicle fleets. The program, which has been under way for two years, has been enthusiastically embraced by several companies, including the state's largest utility, and environmentalists such as the Conservation Law Foundation, said EPA's Lucy Edmondson. The state will be the sole reviewer of the trades, although EPA will retain a counseling and oversight role of the program. The trading scheme allows firms that have reduced their NO* and VOC emissions beyond their permit requirements to sell emissions credits to other companies, which count them as reductions. Five percent of the credits offered for sale are permanently retired to further reduce emissions, Edmondson said. A number of other states, including California, Connecticut, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, are pursuing federal approval of their own trading programs (£S
