Waste Management System; Testing and Monitoring Activities; Final Rule: Methods Innovation Rule and SW-846 Final Update IIIB

The American Petroleum Institute is pleased to submit comments on EPA’s “Waste Management System; Testing and Monitoring Activities; Proposed Rule: Methods Innovation Rule,” and associated “RCRA Waste Sampling Draft Technical Guidance,” EPA document number EPA530-D-02-002, (EPA’s Proposed Technical Guidance or TG), to be filed in EPA Docket No. RCRA–2002-0025. The American Petroleum Institute (API) represents more than 400 member companies involved in all aspects of the oil and natural gas industry. API members are subject to the RCRA hazardous waste identification and management regulations, and therefore are strongly interested in this rulemaking. Overall, the draft TG is a useful addition to existing guidance on RCRA sampling and brings together in a single document sampling and statistical concepts that can be used to characterize wastes to meet RCRA regulatory requirements and objectives. The guidance in many sections is clear and provides good examples to illustrate sampling and data analysis approaches. However, API finds that following some of the guidance in the draft TG would be inconsistent with RCRA regulations. In some respects this TG contradicts existing EPA guidance (e.g. SW-846, Chapter 9), and in some respects this TG is so vague that reasonable application of the guidance by different people could result in different conclusions. API finds it critical for EPA to emphasize in the introduction to the TG that it is guidance and its conclusions and recommendations are not regulations. API strongly encourages EPA to provide training and guidance to EPA Headquarters staff, EPA Regional staff, and state agencies to remove implementation barriers and maximize benefits of the flexibility provided by the proposed changes. It is important for federal and state enforcement staff to comprehend the need for this flexibility, and how generators may implement this and other technical guidance when classify