The TSCA Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) requirements apply to facilities that manufacture domestically and import into the United States chemicals in excess of a reporting threshold of 25,000 pounds or 2,500 pounds, depending on the specific chemical. TSCA Section 8(a) requires facilities subject to the CDR rule to prepare a report every four years for electronic submittal to the U.S. EPA via Central Data Exchange (CDX). The U.S. EPA uses the data, which provides important screening-level exposure related information, to help assess the potential human health and environmental effects of these chemicals and makes the non-confidential business information it receives available to the public. The 4-year reporting cycle for the CDR rule is year 2016 through 2019. Therefore, for this reporting period, the facility is required to submit a CDR report by September 30, 2020 to the EPA. Data must be submitted for all four years of the reporting cycle.
Often overlooked, companies that import at least 25,000 pounds of scrap annually during 2016, 2017, 2018 or 2019 may be subject to the TSCA Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) in 2020. If a company process both domestic and imported scrap for materials recovery, only the imported material should be counted for purposes of determining whether reporting is necessary.
For each substance manufactured or imported in excess of 25,000 pounds per year, the regulated entity needs to fill out an EPA Form U. In order to complete the EPA Form U’s as part of the TSCA CDR rule, the facility needs to open an EPA Central Data Exchange (CDX) account, located at www.epa.cdx.gov. The CDX registration process requests some basic information, in the following order:
Program service (e.g., TRIMEweb, eDisclosure, NetDMR, Chemical Safety and Pesticides Programs (CSPP, etc.)
Program service role (Primary Authorized Official; Primary Support, etc.)
User information
Organization information
When registering the first organization, for the first time, this organization will become the primary organization. The user’s primary organization is important because it indicates the user’s primary email address in CDX.
The EPA Form U is located on the section called Submissions for Chemical Safety and Pesticides Programs (CSPP).
The chemicals the facility manufactures, or imports is compared with the TSCA Inventory list, which contains over 80,000 chemical substances that are subject to reporting, if the manufacturing or importing thresholds are met. These listed substances are considered to exist in the U.S. Commerce.
The regulated community affected by the TSCA CDR rule consists of facilities that mainly belong – with a few exceptions - to the following North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code categories:
NAICS 325 – Chemical Manufacturing
NAICS 324 – Petroleum and Coal Product Manufacturing
The TSCA CDR rule requirements are set forth in the 40 CFR Part 711.
The following information is necessary to fill out the EPA Form U:
List of chemicals manufactured onsite or imported;
General facility information (physical address, technical contact, parent company information);
Production volumes, in pounds for each year (2016 to 2019);
Any claim of Confidential Business Information (CBI)
Industrial functions;
Product categories;
Physical form;
Number of sites (if more than one);
There are tutorials available, prepared by the EPA, that take you step by step to the CDX registration process for CSPP. Both the Primary Authorized official and the EPA Form U prepared – if different from the Primary Authorized Official – need to have a CDX account.