Yesterday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency published a proposed rule in the Federal Register which would add a vapor intrusion component to the Hazard Ranking System, the system EPA uses to evaluate sites for placement on the National Priorities List (“NPL”).  We forecasted and discussed the publication of this proposed rule in a blog post earlier this month.  Under the proposed rule, the Hazard Ranking System evaluation could directly consider “human exposure to hazardous substances, pollutants, or contaminants that enter regularly occupied structures through subsurface intrusion in assessing a site’s relative risk, and thus, enable subsurface intrusion contamination to be evaluated for placement of sites on the NPL.”  Click here to see the proposed rule.

Comments may be submitted on the proposed rule through April 29, 2016.