Review - EPA Publishes Worst Case Discharge NPRM

The EPA published a notice of proposed regulations (NPRM) in Monday’s (available online yesterday) Federal Register (87 FR 17890-17935) for “Clean Water Act Hazardous Substance Worst Case Discharge Planning Regulations”. The proposed rule would implement the mandate in 33 USC 1321(j)(5)(A)(i) for regulations that would require “an owner or operator of a tank vessel or facility… to prepare and submit to the President a plan for responding, to the maximum extent practicable, to a worst case discharge, and to a substantial threat of such a discharge, of oil or a hazardous substance.” The EPA would be required to appove plans.

This NPRM is being published in accordance with a Consent Decree between the Trump Administration’s EPA and the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform. According to that agreement (pg 3), this NPRM was to be published by April 4^th, 2022, and the final rule is to be published by October 18^th, 2024. The draft of this NPRM was sent to the OMB for review on January 24^th, 2022.

Soliciting Comments

The EPA is soliciting public comments on this rulemaking. Comments may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket # EPA-HQ-OLEM-2021-0585). Comments should be submitted by May 27^th, 2022.

For more information on the outline of the proposed regulatory requirements, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/epa-publishes-worst-case-discharge  - subscription required. There are lot of details in this rulemaking. I will be addressing many of those in future posts.