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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 47 / Friday, March 12, 2021 / Rules and Regulations Service Docket-customerservice@
epa.gov.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
AGENCY

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

40 CFR Part 141
EPAOW20170300; FRL1002099OW
RIN 2040AF15

National Primary Drinking Water Regulations: Lead and Copper Rule Revisions; Delay of Effective Date Environmental Protection Agency EPA.
ACTION: Final rule; delay of effective date.
AGENCY:

The Environmental Protection Agency EPA or Agency is issuing a short delay of the March 16, 2021, effective date of the National Primary Drinking Water Regulations: Lead and Copper Rule Revisions LCRR, published in the Federal Register on January 15, 2021. The LCRR will now become effective on June 17, 2021. This final rule does not change the compliance date of January 16, 2024.
This delay in the effective date is consistent with Presidential directives issued on January 20, 2021, to heads of Federal agencies to review certain regulations, including the LCRR. The sole purpose of this delay is to enable EPA to take public comment on a longer extension of the effective date for EPA
to undertake its review of the rule in a deliberate and thorough manner consistent with the public health purposes of the Safe Drinking Water Act and the terms and objectives of recent Presidential directives and in consultation with affected stakeholders.
DATES: As of March 12, 2021, the effective date of the final rule published January 15, 2021, at 86 FR 4198, is delayed until June 17, 2021.
ADDRESSES: The docket for this action, identified by docket identification ID
number EPAHQOW20170300, is available at http www.regulations.gov.
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 COVID19. Our Docket Center staff will continue to provide remote customer service via email, phone, and webform. For further information about EPA Docket Center Services and the current status, please visit us online at https www.epa.gov/
dockets. If you are having trouble locating EPA docket materials, contact the EPA Reading Room Staff for assistance by calling 202 5661744, or send a message to Dockets Customer SUMMARY:

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Jeffrey Kempic, Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, Standards and Risk Management Division, at 202 564
3632 or email kempic.jeffrey@epa.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On January 20, 2021, President Biden issued an Executive Order on Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis. 86 FR 7037, January 25, 2021 Executive Order 13990. Section 2 of Executive Order 13990 directs the heads of all agencies to immediately review regulations that may be inconsistent with, or present obstacles to, the policy set forth in Section 1 of Executive Order 13990. In the January 20, 2021, White House Fact Sheet: List of Agency Actions for Review, the National Primary Drinking Water Regulations: Lead and Copper Rule Revisions LCRR is specifically identified as an agency action that will be reviewed in conformance with Executive Order 13990 https www.whitehouse.gov/
briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/
01/20/fact-sheet-list-of-agency-actionsfor-review/. Also on January 20, 2021, Ronald A. Klain, the Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff, issued a Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies entitled, Regulatory Freeze Pending Review White House memo 86 FR
7424, January 28, 2021; the memorandum directs agencies to consider postponing the effective date of regulations, like the LCRR, that have been published in the Federal Register, but have not taken effect, for the purpose of reviewing any questions of fact, law, and policy the rules may raise.
In addition to these presidential directives, the LCRR has been challenged in court by Natural Resources Defense Council, Newburgh Clean Water Project, NAACP, Sierra Club, United Parents Against Lead and the Attorneys General of New York, California, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia. Those cases have been consolidated in Newburgh Clean Water Project, et al., v. EPA, No. 21
1019 D.C. Cir.. EPA also received a letter on March 4, 2021, from 36
organizations and five individuals requesting that EPA suspend the March 16, 2021, effective date of the LCRR to review the rule and initiate a new rulemaking. The litigants and other stakeholders raise concerns about key aspects of the rule, including whether to
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have a maximum contaminant level, the action level, the pace of lead service line replacements, and the requirements for small water systems, as well as compliance with SDWA rulemaking requirements such as those governing risk assessment, management and communication, and the opportunity for a public hearing. EPA also received a letter on February 4, 2021, from the American Water Works Association requesting that EPA not delay the rule.
I. Reason for This Action Consistent with the above directives, EPA is reviewing the LCRR. In order to ensure that there is an opportunity for engagement with the public in this review, including public input on the critically important public health issues associated with lead in drinking water, and to enable EPA to complete its review of the rule in a deliberate and thorough manner consistent with the public health purposes of the Safe Drinking Water Act, EPA expects that this review will take 9 months and thus will not conclude until December 2021.
The sole purpose of this action is to provide a short delay of the effective date of the LCRR so that EPA can request comment on a longer extensionuntil December 2021of the LCRR effective date and corresponding compliance dates. The proposed longer extension, published elsewhere in this Federal Register, would allow EPA to complete its review of this important rule and consult with stakeholders who have raised significant concerns about the rule, including those who have been historically underserved by, or subject to, discrimination in Federal policies and programs prior to the rule going into effect. The longer extension will also avoid expenditures or other irreversible commitments that would be wasted if, at the end of EPAs review, it decides to propose revisions to the LCRR.
Because of the short duration of this action, the procedural nature of this action, and the fact that the compliance dates for the LCRR are well in the future and this action provides a reprieve for immediate planning for compliance, this action should have minimal adverse impact on regulated entities or the public. No regulatory changes to the LCRR are made by this action. Rather, EPA is taking this action for the sole purpose of providing time for a public comment period which will allow all interested parties to provide input to the agency about whether to extend the LCRR effective date, and corresponding compliance dates, prior to that rule going into effect. To enable this comment process, this rule provides a
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