July 2020
- USEPA is ending the COVID-19 Enforcement Discretion Policy enacted earlier this year. The agency has announced a termination date of August 31, 2020. As distributed earlier, the policy, amongst other topics, offered relief from normal enforcement actions for Hazardous Waste Generators in terms of any potential issues around on-site accumulation, off-site shipments and generator status. Some relief was also granted around original generator signatures on Hazardous Waste Manifests. Be sure to pay attention to any notice from state agencies on this topic as well as they may opt to terminate the policy earlier then August 31, 2020.
- On another note, USDOT has extended the Enforcement Discretion for Hazardous Materials Training issued earlier this year until October 31, 2020. The agency will not be taking enforcement action against any offeror or carrier of hazardous materials (hazmat) for failure to comply with the recurrent DOT hazmat training requirements of 49 CFR – 172.704(c)(2).
- The Hazardous Waste Generators Improvements Rule is now effective in the following states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Hampshire (partially in effect), New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming.
- The Aerosols as Universal Waste Rule is now effective in the following states: Alaska, California, Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Mexico, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Utah.
- Implementation of the Electronic Hazardous Waste Manifest continues to struggle. USEPA reported that thus far this fiscal year (10/1/19) they are on pace to receive ~2 million manifests into the e-Manifest portal and the current rate of fully electronic transacted manifests is 0.25%. Generators should still be receiving their executed manifest copies through the normal channels from the TSDF’s. We are aware of some TSDF’s replacing the mailing of executed manifest copies back to the generator with emailing the same. Please let us know if you are not receiving your manifest copies in a timely fashion.
