On June 11, 2012, US EPA announced that it is extending the deadline for submissions under the Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rule for roughly six weeks from June 30 until August 13, 2012. The CDR rule requires companies that manufacture, import, process and use chemicals to report a wide range of data to the US EPA. The CDR rule reporting period began on February 1, 2012, and Agency officials had previously declined to extend the June 30 deadline, despite numerous requests from companies subject to the CDR rule and members of Congress.
In the Federal Register Notice published by the Agency on June 18, US EPA said that it was extending the deadline “to allow the reporters associated with byproducts to understand and determine their reporting obligations and to allow the regulated community to adjust to electronic reporting and submit their reports.” A number of companies had complained about lack of clarity in the byproducts reporting requirement in the CDR rule, as well as technical problems with US EPA’s central data exchange (CDX) network. US EPA acknowledged the CDX problems in the Federal Register Notice: “With respect to the timing of this action, the need for the Agency to extend the deadline arose, in part, as a result of issues experienced by the regulated community with several aspects of electronic reporting that were brought to the Agency’s attention only recently.” US EPA says that this is a “one-time extension” and that it has no plans to extend the CDR rule deadline beyond August 13.
