(a) Per manifest fee. Fees shall be assessed on a per manifest basis for the following manifest submission transactions:

(1) The submission of each electronic manifest that is electronically signed and submitted to the e-Manifest system by the owners or operators of receiving facilities, with the fee assessed at the applicable rate for electronic manifest submissions;

(2) The submission of each paper manifest submission to the paper processing center signed by owners or operators of receiving facilities, with the fee assessed according to whether the manifest is submitted to the system by mail, by the upload of an image file, or by the upload of a data file representation of the paper manifest; and

(3) The submission of copies of return shipment manifests by facilities that are rejecting hazardous wastes and returning hazardous wastes under return manifests to the original generator. This fee is assessed for the processing of the return shipment manifest(s), and is assessed at the applicable rate determined by the method of submission. The submission shall also include a copy of the original signed manifest showing the rejection of the wastes.

(b) Image file uploads from paper manifests. Receiving facilities may submit image file uploads of completed, ink-signed manifests in lieu of submitting mailed paper forms to the e-Manifest system. Such image file upload submissions may be made for individual manifests received by a facility or as a batch upload of image files from multiple paper manifests received at the facility:

(1) The image file upload must be made in an image file format approved by EPA and supported by the e-Manifest system; and

(2) At the time of submission of an image file upload, a responsible representative of the receiving facility must make a CROMERR compliant certification that to the representative's knowledge or belief, the submitted image files are accurate and complete representations of the facility's received manifests, and that the facility acknowledges that it is obligated to pay the applicable per manifest fee for each manifest included in the submission.

(c) Data file uploads from paper manifests. Receiving facilities may submit data file representations of completed, ink-signed manifests in lieu of submitting mailed paper forms or image files to the e-Manifest system. Such data file submissions from paper manifests may be made for individual manifests received by a facility or as a batch upload of data files from multiple paper manifests received at the facility.

(1) The data file upload must be made in a data file format approved by EPA and supported by the e-Manifest system;

(2) The receiving facility must also submit an image file of each manifest that is included in the individual or batch data file upload; and

(3) At the time of submission of the data file upload, a responsible representative of the receiving facility must make a CROMERR compliant certification that to the representative's knowledge or belief, the data and images submitted are accurate and complete representations of the facility's received manifests, and that the facility acknowledges that it is obligated to pay the applicable per manifest fee for each manifest included in the submission.