In an Oct. 27 letter, several public interest groups, including Environmental Defense, National Environmental Trust, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, and OMB Watch, requested a 60-day extension to EPA's original Dec. 5 comment deadline. The groups argued that the extension was necessary for organizations to submit, "...substantive comments that would illustrate the potential impacts of the rulemaking on community right-to-know." On Nov. 22, EPA Assistant Administrator Kim Nelson formally granted a 39-day extension of the public comment period. The curious length of the extension appears to be a compromise between the requested 60-day extension and the 30-day extension EPA officials reportedly planned to offer. A 30-day extension would have placed the deadline immediately after the New Year holiday and made it difficult for groups to finalize and submit comments in time. The new deadline, Jan. 13, should allow groups sufficient time following the holidays to finish comments to the agency.

On Nov. 25 EPA shutdown its online docket and moved the TRI rulemaking, along with all of its current regulatory actions, to the regulations.gov site. The transition is part of an effort to consolidate e-rulemaking activities and improve consistency across agencies. EPA, however, has been criticized for its handling of the transition to the new system. Visitors to the old e-docket site receive a brief message which reads: "EDOCKET No Longer Available. As of Friday, November 25, 2005 at 8 am, EDOCKET is permanently unavailable. If you would like to submit an electronic comment for an EPA docket, please visit the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) at www.regulations.gov." Interested parties could easily misinterpret the message, believing the opportunity to participate in the TRI rulemaking has been missed. Several important functions on the regulations.gov site also appear to be malfunctioning, leaving users unable to download or view documents in the docket. Managers of the site claim the problems will be fixed in a few days. "The agency should have maintained rulemakings begun on the EPA system in that system until they're concluded," explains OMB Watch senior policy analyst Sean Moulton. "The EPA could have managed the transition better by posting new regulatory activities on the new site. At the very least, it should have waited until regulations.gov was functioning properly and then posted a more comprehensive message explaining the transition." OMB Watch staff have confirmed that comments on the TRI proposals are still being accepted through the earlier methods:

• Email comments directly to EPA at: oei.docket@epa.gov
• Fax comments to: 202-566-0741
• Mail comments to: Office of Environmental Information (OEI) Docket, Environmental Protection Agency, Mail Code: 28221T, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW., Washington, DC 20460. Attention Docket ID No. TRI--0073

To submit comments online or review the TRI docket, including background documents and previously submitted comments:

• Go to: www.regulations.gov
• Search by Keyword for EPA-HQ-TRI-2005-0073
• Click on 'Docket ID' (furthest left), to review submitted comments, proposals and background documents
• To submit comments online through the site: Click on 'Add Comments' which appears furthest right