[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 207 (Monday, October 26, 2020)]
[Notices]
[Pages 67738-67739]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-23553]
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
[EPA-HQ-OAR-2020-0464; FRL 10016-13-OAR]
Access by EPA Contractors to Information Claimed as Confidential
Business Information (CBI) Submitted Under Title II of the Clean Air
Act and Related Regulations
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Notice.
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SUMMARY: EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality (OTAQ) plans to
authorize various contractors to access information which is submitted
to us under the Clean Air Act and which may be claimed as, or may be
determined to be, confidential business information (CBI). The
information is related to the registration of fuels and fuel additives
under 40 CFR part 79 and to various compositional and performance
standards for reformulated gasoline, conventional gasoline, diesel
fuel, detergents, and the renewable fuel standard (RFS) under 40 CFR
part 80.
DATES: The EPA will accept comments on this Notice through November 2,
2020.
ADDRESSES: You may send comments, identified by Docket ID No EPA-HQ-
OAR-2020-0464, by any of the following methods:
Federal eRulemaking Portal: Submit your comments at
https://www.regulations.gov/ (our preferred method). Follow the online
instructions for submitting comments.
Email: Email your comments to a-and-r-Docket@epa.gov.
Include Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2020-0464 in the subject line of the
message.
Mail: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Docket
Center, Air & Radiation Docket, Mail Code 28221T, 1200 Pennsylvania
Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20460.
Hand Delivery or Courier (by scheduled appointment only):
EPA Docket Center, WJC West Building, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution
Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004. The Docket Center's hours of
operations are 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Monday-Friday (except Federal
Holidays).
Instructions: All submissions received must include the Docket ID
No. for this notice. Comments received may be posted without change to
https://www.regulations.gov/, including any personal information
provided. For detailed instructions on sending comments and additional
information on this action, see the ``Public Participation'' heading of
the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this document. Out of an
abundance of caution for members of the public and our staff, the EPA
Docket Center and Reading Room are closed to the public, with limited
exceptions, to reduce the risk of transmitting COVID-19. Our Docket
Center staff will continue to provide remote customer service via
email, phone, and webform. We encourage the public to submit comments
via https://www.regulations.gov/ or email, as there may be a delay in
processing mail and faxes. Hand deliveries and couriers may be received
by scheduled appointment only. For further information on EPA Docket
Center services and the current status, please visit us online at
https://www.epa.gov/dockets.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Anne-Marie Pastorkovich, Environmental
Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, MC 6405A, Washington, DC
20460; telephone number: 202-343-9623; email address:
pastorkovich.anne-marie@epa.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Does this Notice apply to me?
This action is directed to the general public. However, this action
may be of particular interest to parties who submit information to the
EPA regarding fuel and fuel additive registration (40 CFR part 79) and
related to various standards for reformulated and conventional
gasoline, diesel fuel, detergents, and the renewable fuel standard (40
CFR part 80). Parties who may be interested in this action include fuel
manufacturers (such as refiners and importers), manufacturers of fuel
additives, producers of renewable fuels, exporters, parties who engage
in Renewable Identification Number (RIN) transactions, and all those
who submit 40 CFR part 79 and part 80 registrations or reports to the
EPA via any method or system. Such systems include the EPA Central Data
Exchange (CDX), DCFUEL, OTAQReg, and the EPA Moderated Transaction
System (EMTS).
This Federal Register notice may be of relevance to parties that
submit data under the above-listed programs or systems. Since other
parties may also be interested, the Agency has not attempted to
describe all the specific parties that may be affected by this action.
If you have further questions regarding the applicability of this
action to a party, please contact the person listed in FOR FURTHER
INFORMATION CONTACT.
II. Public Participation
Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2020-
0464 at https://www.regulations.gov (our preferred method), or the
other methods identified in the ADDRESSES section. Once submitted,
comments cannot be edited or removed from the docket. The EPA may
publish any comment received to its public docket. Do not submit to
EPA's docket at https://www.regulations.gov any information you
consider to be confidential business information (CBI) or other
information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Multimedia
submissions (audio, video, etc.) must be accompanied by a written
comment. The written comment is considered the official comment and
should include discussion of all points you wish to make. The EPA will
generally not consider comments or comment contents located outside of
the primary submission (i.e., on the web, cloud, or other file sharing
system). For additional submission methods, the full EPA public comment
policy, information about CBI or multimedia submissions, and general
guidance on making effective comments, please visit https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.
As mentioned above, EPA is suspending its Docket Center and Reading
Room for public visitors, with limited exceptions, to reduce the risk
of transmitting COVID-19. Our Docket Center staff will continue to
provide remote customer service via email, phone, and webform. We
encourage the public to submit comments via https://www.regulations.gov/ as there may be a delay in processing mail and
faxes. Hand deliveries or couriers will be received by scheduled
appointment only. For further information and updates on EPA Docket
Center services, please visit us online at https://www.epa.gov/dockets.
The EPA continues to carefully and continuously monitor information
from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), local area
health departments, and our Federal partners so that we can respond
rapidly as conditions change regarding COVID-19.
[[Page 67739]]
III. Description of Programs and Potential Disclosure of Information
Claimed as Confidential Business Information (CBI) to Contractors
The EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality (OTAQ) has
responsibility for protecting public health and the environment by
regulating air pollution from motor vehicles, engines, and the fuels
used to operate them, and by encouraging travel choices that minimize
emissions. In order to implement various Clean Air Act programs, and to
permit regulated entities flexibility in meeting regulatory
requirements (e.g., compliance on average), we collect compliance
reports and other information from them. The information submitted may
be claimed as CBI. Information submitted under such a claim is handled
in accordance with EPA's regulations at 40 CFR part 2, subpart B and in
accordance with Agency procedures, including comprehensive system
security planning. When the EPA has determined that disclosure of
information claimed as CBI to contractors is necessary, the
corresponding contract must address the appropriate use and handling of
the information by the contractor and the contractor must require its
personnel who require access to information claimed as CBI to sign
written non-disclosure agreements before they are granted access to
data.
In accordance with 40 CFR 2.301(h), we have determined that the
contractors, subcontractors, and grantees (collectively referred to as
``contractors'') listed below require access to CBI submitted to us
under the Clean Air Act and in connection with various programs related
to the regulation of fuels and fuel additives under both 40 CFR part 79
(subparts A through F) and 40 CFR part 80--(subparts A through O, and
appendices). OTAQ collects this data in order to monitor compliance
with Clean Air Act programs and, in many cases, to permit regulated
parties flexibility in meeting regulatory requirements. For example,
data that may contain CBI are collected to register fuels and fuel
additives prior to introduction into commerce under 40 CFR part 79.
Certain programs under 40 CFR part 80 are designed to permit regulated
parties an opportunity to comply on average, or to engage in
transactions using various types of credits. Programs utilizing credits
include gasoline sulfur, gasoline benzene, and RFS. Data submitted
under 40 CFR part 80 includes information related to reformulated and
conventional gasoline, diesel fuel, detergents, and renewable fuels.
Fuels program data is reviewed and assessed to determine the success of
the programs or to plan for regulatory improvements. We are issuing
this Federal Register notice to inform all affected submitters of
information that we plan to grant access to material that may be
claimed as CBI to the contractors identified below on a need-to-know
basis.
Under EPA Contract Number EP-C-16-012, General Dynamics Information
Technology (GDIT) located at 650 Peter Jefferson Parkway, Suite 300
Charlottesville, Virginia 22911 provides report processing, program
support, technical support and analysis and information technology
services that involve access to information claimed as CBI related to
40 CFR parts 79 and 80. The original contractor, CSRA, was purchased by
GDIT. The following subcontractors of GDIT continue to provide work
under this contract:
CGI Federal, Inc., 12601 Fair Lakes Circle, Fairfax, VA
22033-4902;
Powersolv, Inc., 1801 Robert Fulton Drive, Suite 550,
Reston, VA 20191 and their subcontractor, Premier Itech, Inc., 8869
Grand Ave., Beulah, CO 81023.
GDIT has added a subcontractor, Potomac Economics, LTD, 9990
Fairfax Blvd., Suite 560, Fairfax, VA 22030 to provide program support,
technical support, and data analysis services that involve access to
information claimed as CBI related to 40 CFR parts 79 and 80. Access by
this subcontractor will begin on November 5, 2020.
Access to data under the GDIT contract will continue until June 30,
2021. If the contract is extended, this access will continue for the
remainder of the contract without further notice. If the contract
expires prior to June 30, 2021, the access will cease at that time. If
GDIT employs additional subcontractors to support EPA on a regular
basis or on a limited or one-time basis under the above-listed
contract, and those subcontractors require access to CBI, EPA will
notify interested parties of the contemplated disclosure and provide
them with an opportunity to comment by publishing a notice in the
Federal Register.
Under Contract Number EP-C-16-020, ICF Incorporated, LLC, 9300 Lee
Highway, Fairfax, Virginia 22031, provides technical support and data
analysis services that involve access to information claimed as CBI
related to 40 CFR parts 79 and 80. Access to data will begin and will
continue until September 30, 2021. If the contract is extended, this
access will continue for the remainder of the contract without further
notice. If the contract expires prior to September 30, 2021, the access
will cease at that time. If ICF employs subcontractors to support EPA
on a regular basis or on a limited or one-time basis under the above-
listed contract, and those subcontractors require access to CBI, EPA
will notify interested parties of the contemplated disclosure and
provide them with an opportunity to comment by publishing a notice in
the Federal Register.
Under Contract Number 68HERD20A0004, Research Triangle Institute,
RTI, P.O. Box 12194, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2194, and its
subcontractors, Dr. Ruiqing Miao, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama
and Dr. Madhu Khanna, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
Urbana, Illinois, provide technical support and data analysis services
that involve access to information claimed as CBI related to 40 CFR
parts 79 and 80. Access to data will begin November 5, 2020 and will
continue until July 19, 2021. If the contract is extended, this access
will continue for the remainder of the contract without further notice.
If the contract expires prior to July 19, 2021, the access will cease
at that time. If RTI employs additional subcontractors to support EPA
on a regular basis or on a limited or one-time basis under the above-
listed contract, and those subcontractors require access to CBI, EPA
will notify interested parties of the contemplated disclosure and
provide them with an opportunity to comment by publishing a notice in
the Federal Register.
Parties who want further information about this Federal Register
notice or about OTAQ's disclosure of information claimed as CBI to
contactors may contact the person listed under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
CONTACT.
Dated: October 19, 2020.
Byron J. Bunker,
Director, Compliance Division, Office of Transportation & Air Quality,
Office of Air and Radiation.
[FR Doc. 2020-23553 Filed 10-23-20; 8:45 am]
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