EPA Hikes Waste Manifest Fees In FY20 After Overestimating Users

摘要

EPA has quietly announced that user fees for hazardous waste manifests will rise sharply starting in October, due to various factors, including the agency's overestimation of the number of manifests it expected to process over the past year as it launched its push to move to an electronic-manifest (e-Manifest) system. User fees per manifest will rise between 60 percent and 115 percent for fiscal years 2020 and 2021, depending on the type of submission made, with paper manifests costing the most at $25 per manifest, EPA announced this week on its website. The increases are due to lower manifest usage rates than predicted in its first year and program costs, the agency says. "EPA received approximately 1 million fewer manifests in FY19 than it originally estimated when it determined the initial schedule of fees," the agency says on its website. As a result, each individual manifest bears a higher proportion of the costs for operating the e-Manifest program, it says. In addition, EPA says it "lacked an adequate revenue stream in the initial year of system launch," resulting in a significant backlog for companies' paper manifests - which will need to be addressed over the next two-year period. And the agency also points to higher costs due to its need to respond to requests from stakeholders for enhancements to the system. The changes will primarily affect facilities that receive hazardous waste shipments as they are the entities subject to the fees.