On October 5, 2012 The Hazardous Waste Electronic Manifest Establishment ACT was signed into law, with the final rule being published February 7 2014. This allowed the EPA to design an e-manifest system to launch in 2018. To fund the program the EPA has proposed a user fee schedule. The Office of Management and Budget completed its review on May 19. At this time the contents of the user fee proposal are unknown. It is expected that the agency will propose its schedule on June 30, 2016 during a webinar on the recent developments.
The EPA is attempting to prevent “midnight dumping” or illegal disposal of hazardous waste by implementing a more secure waste tracking system. Additionally, the agency believes tracking waste with a technology based system, rather than pen and paper, will reduce industry burden by 300,000 to 700,000 hours and potentially save industry and states $75 million a year.
At this time the EPA is working through the details to ensure the fee structure is uncomplicated so as to attain the savings mentioned above. We expect to learn more during the June 30 webinar. Also, the agency has developed a blog around this subject.