Retail Association Comments on EPA eManifest Enforcement

On behalf of our members, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (“NACDS”) and the Retail Industry Leaders Association (collectively the “Retail Associations”) are writing to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA”) Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery (“ORCR”) to ask for enforcement discretion for EPA’s scheduled effective date for applying a fee schedule for user fees for the electronic hazardous waste manifest system (“e-Manifest System”). Generally, until retailers and pharmacies are able to use existing e-Manifest systems to submit e-Manifests to ORCR, we believe the Agency should grant enforcement discretion and only charge a user fee of $4.00 per manifest per location, regardless of whether that manifest is in the non-electronic form of a data file upload, image upload, or mailed paper. Once ORCR provides appropriate guidance and authorization for retailers and pharmacies to file e-Manifests using existing systems, ORCR should then charge the higher user fee rates for non-electronic manifests and the $4.00 rate for e-Manifests, as outlined in the January 3, 2018 Final Rule on User Fees, for the e-Manifest System.