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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 185 / Tuesday, September 28, 2021 / Proposed Rules from 21,394 facilities. EPA needed to contact 2,119 of those facilities regarding their submitted parent company name to conform the submitted name to the standardized format and reflect the highest-level parent company in the U.S. 9.9% of all TRI facilities. The number of facilities affected by the parent company standardization effort for Reporting Year 2019 was similar to the numbers in Reporting Years 2012 19% of TRI
facilities, 2013 21% of facilities, 2014
15% of facilities, 2015 14% of facilities, 2016 8.5% of facilities, 2017
4.5% of facilities, and 2018 6.8% of facilities. Even though EPA
prepopulates standardized parent company names into TRIMEwebthe reporting software used by TRI
facilitiesfor use in the next reporting year, the Agency still has to reach out to thousands of TRI facilities annually to ensure they submit accurate, standardized parent company names.
While time-saving measures have been implemented over the past few years, regulatory uncertainty over this definition remains, and verifying and standardizing parent company information remains burdensome for reporters, necessitating a rule to improve reporting efficiency for TRI
facilities and the Agencys data quality efforts.
Additionally, collecting the highestlevel foreign parent company name in addition to the highest level-U.S.-based parent company name would ensure greater data consistency for TRI data users than just including one name i.e., either the highest-level U.S.-based company, or the foreign parent company. The distinct data elements for U.S.-based and foreign parent company names enable data users to include or exclude any foreign parent companies from analyses or searches as they choose. Allowing either a U.S.based or foreign parent company name to be reported for the same data element would prevent TRIs public data tools from distinguishing companies that are owned by U.S.-based entities from those that are foreign-owned. TRI data users include researchers, industry, the public, and other EPA and government reporting programs. Conversely, a single data element that reflects just the single highest-level parent company, whether it is based in the U.S. or abroad, would prevent any data user from reasonably and efficiently determining where the company is based, unless further data of the listed parent company, such as address, was also required.
Finally, this proposed rule would more closely align the definition of parent company for TRI reporters with
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the definition codified by the Chemical Data Reporting CDR Program at 40 CFR
711.3. Differences in this proposed definition and the definition codified in the CDR regulations result from differences in the respective programs longstanding terms of art e.g., TRI uses facilities, whereas CDR uses sites, as well as from edits intended to provide greater clarity in the TRI
context. For instance, the proposed TRI
definition slightly differs from CDR
regulations in the paragraph referring to 50:50 joint ventures 40 CFR 372.3 in order to clarify that a joint venture should be reported as its own parent company, irrespective of whether any of the joint participants is owned by a higher-level company. Nonetheless, this proposed rule would bring the codified definition of parent company under TRI regulations much closer to the codified definition under CDR
regulations. Having nearly identical definitions between the TRI and CDR
programs will support EPAs ability to compare the databases for data quality purposes. Additionally, the Greenhouse Gas Reporting program GHGRP has codified the definition of parent company at 40 CFR 98.3c11. While the GHGRP definition of this data element has some differences from the CDR definition and this rulemakings proposed definition, there are many similarities between the definitions, including the need to report the highestlevel company in the facilitys ownership hierarchy and the requirement to refer to reporting instructions for standardized naming conventions. Thus, this proposed definition and reporting requirement is similar to those codified under other EPA reporting rules. Ultimately, this proposed definition is expected to promote understanding of the data element within the regulated community, especially among those facilities which also report to CDR and are already familiar with the codified definition.
E. What are the estimated incremental impacts?
EPA has evaluated the potential incremental impacts of this proposed rulemaking, including alternative options. The details are presented in the economic analysis prepared for the proposed rule Ref. 2, which is available in the docket and is briefly summarized here.
EPA estimates the incremental impacts across all facilities to be up to $1,209,202 in the first year, and up to $14,020 every subsequent year, with no annualized capital or operation and maintenance costs. The paperwork
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burden is estimated to be up to 18,091
hours the first year, and up to 210 hours every subsequent year. However, these estimated impacts do not include the cost and time savings for facilities who have previously had difficulty interpreting EPAs guidance on this data element, nor do these impacts include the reduced need for communication between the Agency and facilities in the annual effort to standardize parent company names. The benefits of the proposed rule are described qualitatively in the economic analysis, as some of the benefits are unable to be monetized such as the improved ability of various TRI data users to analyze parent company-level information thoroughly; thus, the estimated incremental impact listed does not factor in benefits. EPA estimates that a total of 21,458 entities may be impacted by this proposed rule.
F. What should I consider as I prepare my comments for EPA?
1. Submitting CBI. Do not submit CBI
to EPA through regulations.gov or email.
Clearly mark the part or all of the information that you claim to be CBI.
For CBI information in a disk or CD
ROM that you mail to EPA, mark the outside of the disk or CDROM as CBI
and then identify electronically within the disk or CDROM the specific information that is claimed as CBI. In addition to one complete version of the comment that includes information claimed as CBI, a copy of the comment that does not contain the information claimed as CBI must be submitted for inclusion in the public docket.
Information so marked will not be disclosed except in accordance with procedures set forth in 40 CFR part 2.
2. Tips for preparing your comments.
When preparing and submitting your comments, see the commenting tips at http www.epa.gov/dockets/
comments.html.
II. Background A. What is a facilitys Parent Company for TRI reporting purposes?
In the RFI, parent company is described as: the highest-level company, located in the United States, that directly owns at least 50 percent of the voting stock of the facilitys company . . . . A facility that is a 50:50 joint venture is its own parent company. When a facility is owned by more than one company and none of the facility owners directly owns at least 50
percent of its voting stock, the facility should provide the name of the parent company of either the facility operator
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