Dear Assistant Administrator Freedhoff: The undersigned organizations appreciate the opportunity to provide input on EPA’s proposed rulemaking regarding Toxic Substances Control Act Reporting and Recordkeeping Requirements for Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS). EPA’s proposal does not comply with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA), the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA), and several executive orders. We urge EPA to revise and repropose this action not only to bring EPA’s proposal into compliance with these requirements, but also to give EPA actionable, high-quality, information to support EPA nearterm PFAS policies and possible regulatory actions.
EPA must demonstrate that its collection has practical utility to comply with the PRA. For decades, EPA has recognized that practical utility means that the data must be valid and be able to be used by the Agency in a timely manner. EPA, therefore, should implement a phased and tiered reporting system to collect the most useful and the most likely to be accurate PFAS data first. Examples of this category of information are specific PFAS for which EPA has independently peer-reviewed toxicity data and for which EPA and respondents can use EPAapproved test methods, based on sound science and risk, to validate the reported data.