EPA queried on producer exemption in storm-water rule

March 13, 2006
US Sen. James L. Jeffords (I-Vt.) and five Senate Democrats have raised questions about possible involvement of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl C. Rove and the Office of Management and Budget in development of an Environmental Protection Agency proposal affecting oil and gas producers.

US Sen. James L. Jeffords (I-Vt.) and five Senate Democrats have raised questions about possible involvement of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl C. Rove and the Office of Management and Budget in development of an Environmental Protection Agency proposal affecting oil and gas producers.

In a Mar. 6 letter to EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson, Jeffords and Democrats Frank R. Lautenberg (NJ), Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Ron Wyden (Ore.), John F. Kerry (Mass.), and Russell D. Feingold (Wis.) said the proposed rule to exempt producers from the Clean Water Act’s storm-water runoff regulations incorrectly interprets the 1987 Clean Water Act and congressional intent.

EPA issued the proposed rule on Jan. 6 to implement Section 323 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which added a paragraph to Section 502 of the Clean Water Act to define the term “oil and gas exploration, production, processing, or treatment, or transmission facilities.”

Jeffords, chief minority member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and the five Democrats said the proposal goes beyond EPA’s original plan.

They suggested that a provision to exclude sediment contamination as a factor that may cause a normally exempt oil and gas exploration and production activity to require a storm-water permit was added at OMB’s request.

“This proposal contradicts the 17-year-old NPDES [National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System] regulations on this subject under the guise of congressional intent where none exists,” the senators said.

They said EPA’s docket for the rulemaking contains a Sept. 20, 2002, letter from Ernest Angelo, a Midland, Tex., petroleum engineer, to Rove and responses from Rove and Tracy Meehan, then an assistant administrator in EPA’s Office of Water.

The docket also contains comments from OMB indicating that the White House office originated the idea to eliminate sediment from the definition of “contamination,” according to the senators.

They asked Johnson to explain why EPA did not originally include this language in its proposal, what justification OMB provided for inserting these changes, and what effect the changes would have on human health and the environment.

Jeffords and the Democrats urged Johnson and EPA to drop the proposed modification “and limit any action the agency takes to the statutory requirements of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.”