The US Environmental Protection Agency proposed not imposing additional burdensome and potentially duplicative requirements for both the oil and gas and the coal industries “because the financial risk to the federal government from those facilities is already addressed by various existing federal and state technical and financial requirements and modern material management practices.”
EPA emphasized that its proposed action would not drop existing federal requirements. “Rather, it is a proposal to not impose additional requirements,” its Dec. 4 announcement said.
“After a thorough evaluation, EPA has determined that the petroleum and coal manufacturing industry’s current practices, along with existing federal and state regulations, adequately address potential financial risks to the federal government and American taxpayer,” said EPA Administrator Andrew R. Wheeler.
EPA noted that in the 39 years since the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) became federal law, a comprehensive regulatory framework has developed. Existing monitoring and operation standards have consistently worked over time to decrease the risk in these energy industries that if a hazardous waste cleanup is needed, the US government will have to bear the cost of cleanup, it said.
Further, EPA said, this proposed finding does not affect, limit, or restrict its existing authority to take a response action or enforcement action under CERCLA at any facility in these industries, to include requirements for financial responsibility as part of such a response action, or to take appropriate action under various other federal environmental statutes that may apply to individual facilities.
Those other laws include the 1963 Clean Air Act, 1972 Clean Water Act, 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act. These existing regulations, including financial responsibility requirements, continue to apply to facilities in the coal, oil, and gas industries, EPA said.
Consistent with mining
EPA said that the proposal was consistent with the analysis it undertook for the hard rock mining industry, an approach the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld in July. It evaluated the degree and duration of risk of the possible cost to cover the cleanup of hazardous substance releases associated with the production, transportation, treatment, storage, or disposal of hazardous substances in the energy industries, it added.
The agency also examined the sector’s economic trends and financial health and found them in a relatively stable financial position with low default risk. Its evaluation showed that existing regulatory programs and voluntary practices reduce the need for federally financed response action at the sector’s facilities.
Public comments will be accepted for 60 days following the proposal’s publication in the Federal Register, where it had not appeared as of Dec. 9.
Nick Snow
NICK SNOW covered oil and gas in Washington for more than 30 years. He worked in several capacities for The Oil Daily and was founding editor of Petroleum Finance Week before joining OGJ as its Washington correspondent in September 2005 and becoming its full-time Washington editor in October 2007. He retired from OGJ in January 2020.
