The Regulations.gov Exchange enables you to post your opinion on discussion topics. We encourage you to share your thoughts as they relate to the topic being discussed. Your posts will be publicly visible; therefore, the site utilizes a moderation policy to ensure that your posts are appropriate and not harmful to others. We review and moderate posts according to the policy below. The views expressed in posts reflect those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or the federal government.

We want to publish your posts, but we expect posts generally to be courteous. To that end, we have established the following policy.

We reserve the discretion not to display posts that:

• contain obscene, indecent, or profane language;
• contain threats, or defamatory statements;
• contain hate speech directed at race, color, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, ethnicity, age, religion, or disability;
• reveal your own or others' sensitive/personal information (e.g., Social Security numbers)
• contain information posted in violation of law, including libel, condoning or encouraging illegal activity, and revealing classified information, or posts that might affect the outcome of ongoing legal proceedings or
• promote or endorse services or products, including links to external commercial sites. (Note that non-commercial links that are relevant to the topic or another post are acceptable.)

Do not submit copyrighted or other proprietary material in any form unless you clearly indicate that you have permission to do so. By submitting your posts or other work, you grant Regulations.gov, EPA, and anyone viewing the discussion forum web site irrevocable permission to copy, distribute, make derivatives, display or perform the poster’s work publicly and free-of-charge.

If you are a reporter, please send questions regarding this rulemaking to the EPA Newsroom through normal channels rather than by submitting questions here as posts. It is our policy not to post reporter’s questions.

We recognize that the Internet is a 24/7 medium and your posts are welcome at any time. However, given the need to manage federal resources, we intend to review and moderate posts from 8:30 am – 5:30 pm Monday through Friday, except federal holidays. We intend to review and moderate posts submitted at other times as soon as possible on the next business day.

In some cases we ask you to provide your name and e-mail address, although providing either is optional. We request your name to make it easier to carry on a conversation. For this reason, we publish your name along with your post. We ask for your e-mail address so that we can contact you if necessary. It is our policy not to publish your e-mail address.

To protect your privacy, please do not include information (e.g., an e-mail address or phone number) in the text of your comment that identifies you.

You can find additional guidance as to how EPA regards privacy issues within the privacy policy provided on EPA’s main Web site.

Thank you for taking the time to read this discussion forum policy. We encourage your participation in our discussion and look forward to an active exchange of ideas.

If you have questions about this discussion forum policy or how we apply it, please contact us through the EPA's Greenversations Web site.