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Statement of Need: On February 7, 2014, the EPA promulgated the e-Manifest Final rule, in order to comply with the Hazardous Waste Electronic Manifest Establishment Act, which required the EPA to issue a regulation authorizing electronic manifests by October 5, 2013. In issuing that rule, the EPA completed an important step that must precede the development of a national e-Manifest system, as required by the Hazardous Waste Electronic Manifest Establishment Act. This rule is the second regulation that must precede the development of the e-Manifest system. This action will implement the broad discretion granted on the Agency to establish reasonable user fees for the various activities associated with using and submitting electronic and paper manifests to the national system. Additionally, OMB Circular A-25 on User Charges provides that agencies of the Executive Branch must generally set user fee charges or fees through regulation.

Summary of the Legal Basis: Section 2(c) of the e-Manifest Act authorizes the EPA to impose on manifest users reasonable user fees to pay any costs incurred in developing, operating, maintaining, and upgrading the system, including any costs incurred in collecting and processing data from any paper manifest submitted to the system. Thus, this Action will implement the broad discretion granted on the Agency to establish reasonable user fees for the various activities associated with using and submitting electronic and paper manifests to the national system.

Alternatives: The EPA plans to issue rulemaking to establish the appropriate electronic manifest and paper manifest fees. The EPA plans to propose for comment alternatives for imposing and collecting electronic manifest and paper fees.

Anticipated Costs and Benefits: When the e-Manifest Final Rule was published in February 2014, the Agency deferred the development of the detailed risk impact analysis (RIA) for the e-Manifest system until the User Fee Schedule Rule. Thus, the RIA for the proposed User Fee Schedule Rule will not be limited to the impacts of the user fees announced in the rule, but will also estimate the costs and benefits of the overall e-Manifest system. The primary costs in the e-Manifest RIA will be the cost to build the system, the costs for industry and state governments to connect to the system, and the cost to run the system. The most significant benefit of the e-Manifest system estimated in the RIA will be reduced burden for industry to comply with RCRA manifesting requirements, and the reduced burden on states that collect and utilize manifest data for program management purposes.

Risks: This action does not address any particular risks in the EPA's jurisdiction as it does not change existing requirements for manifesting hazardous waste shipments. It will merely propose for comment our fee methodology for setting the appropriate fees of electronic manifests, and paper manifests that continue in use, at such time as the system to receive them is built and operational.