(a)  (1)  Except as provided in paragraph (2), the department shall not publish a notice of a proposal to adopt, amend, or repeal regulations pursuant to the rulemaking provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 11340) of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code) pertaining to the criteria and guidelines for the identification of hazardous waste or to management standards for special wastes until the findings of the external scientific peer review entity convened pursuant to Section 57004 have been issued and the department has reviewed those findings.

(2)  Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the department shall not publish a notice of a proposal to adopt, amend, or repeal the regulations specified in paragraph (1) before January 1, 1999.

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(b)  With respect to the regulations specified in subdivision (a), the department shall submit for public comment its analysis of any hazardous waste management activity to be exempted from this chapter pursuant to subdivision (b) of Section 25150.6 and its demonstration that the exemption satisfies the requirements of subdivision (c) of Section 25150.6 on the earlier of the following dates:

(1)  The date that the department issues its draft environmental impact report on the proposed regulations.

(2)  The date the department publishes its notice of proposed regulatory action pursuant to the rulemaking provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 11340) of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code).

(c)  Subdivision (b) does not prohibit the department from revising its analysis or demonstration to respond to public comments before the adoption of the regulations.

(d)  The department shall, prior to adopting the final version of any regulations specifying the criteria and guidelines for the identification of hazardous waste pursuant to Section 25141 and submitting the adopted regulations to the Office of Administrative Law, do all of the following:

(1)  Determine which aspects of the final version of the regulations have been changed subsequent to an external scientific peer review of the scientific basis and scientific portions of the regulations as initially proposed and identify the scientific basis and empirical data or other scientific findings, conclusions, and assumptions upon which the changes are premised.

(2)  Submit each change identified pursuant to paragraph (1), together with all supporting scientific material, to external scientific peer review pursuant to paragraph (1) of subdivision (d) of Section 57004 if both of the following apply:

(A)  The change is related to establishing a regulatory level, standard, or other requirement for the protection of public health, safety, or the environment.

(B)  The change is not directly related to, and is not a response to, the findings of the external scientific peer review of the regulations as initially proposed.

(3)  Comply with the requirements of paragraph (2) of subdivision (d) of Section 57004.

(e)  (1)  The department may utilize the CalTox model and the criteria and guidelines for the identification of hazardous waste, if the criteria and guidelines have been adopted pursuant to the rulemaking provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 11340) of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code), to generate new values for soluble constituents.

(2)  Notwithstanding paragraph (1), the department shall not amend or repeal the regulations adopted pursuant to this chapter that are in effect on the effective date of the act adding this section during the 1997-98 Regular Session, with respect to the testing procedure employed to measure solubility or with respect to the regulatory thresholds measured by that testing procedure until an external scientific peer review entity convened pursuant to Section 57004 makes the following finding:

(A)  The new proposed testing procedure for solubility is based on sound scientific knowledge, methods, and practices and will predict, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, the long-term mobility in landfill leachate of each hazardous constituent for which the department has established by regulation a soluble threshold limit concentration.

(B)  For those hazardous constituents whose long-term mobility in landfill leachate cannot be accurately measured by any testing procedure that can be developed within a reasonable period of time, the soluble threshold limit concentration can be adjusted in a scientifically sound manner to compensate for the extent of inaccuracy of the testing procedure for that constituent.

(3)  In establishing revised total threshold limit concentrations in any proposed regulations pertaining to the criteria and guidelines for the identification of hazardous waste pursuant to Section 25141, the department shall not base the total threshold limit concentration for any hazardous constituent in whole, or in part, on an assumption that when wastes are placed on or in the land outside of a permitted disposal facility, those wastes will be mixed or diluted, unless an external scientific peer review entity convened pursuant to Section 57004 finds that the department has demonstrated, in a sound scientific manner, that the assumption that dilution or mixing will occur when the wastes are applied or disposed to land is a reasonable representation of waste management practices in the state, while taking into account reasonably foreseeable mismanagement of wastes, and that these application or disposal practices do not pose significant public health or environmental risks.

(Added by Stats. 1998, Ch. 326, Sec. 1. Effective August 21, 1998.)