On May 23, AMWA, the American Water Works Association, and the National Association of Clean Water Agencies submitted a joint comment letter to EPA requesting a 60-day extension on the comment period for the recently proposed rule: Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science (83 FR 18768). The three organizations stressed that they, “support increasing transparency whenever possible, but would like to state that increasing transparency should be accomplished in concert with the development of regulations that protect public health and the environment.”
The letter argues that an extended comment period will allow the groups time to fully understand the proposal and will give the associations the time they need to provide the most useful and thorough comments they can. Originally, the comment period was scheduled to end May 30, 2018. However, on May 25 EPA published a notice (83 FR 24255) to extend the comment period to August 16. The agency also announced plans to hold a public hearing in Washington DC on July 17.
As noted in an earlier Regulatory Report, the proposed rule has the potential to affect the research used in the development of ongoing and future regulatory rulemakings.