Estimated Cost and Energy Impacts of Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure Regulation on Seven U.S. Energy Sectors
Analyses by Advanced Resources International, Arlington, VA, Argonne National Laboratory, Washington, DC, and ALL Consulting, Tulsa, OK, for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy
In November 2008, the Agency issued a direct final rule to revise the definition of "navigable waters" in the SPCC rule to comply with a court decision. Also, in December 2008 and December 2006 EPA issued two separate final rules to amend the Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) rule at 40 CFR Part 112. In January 2009, EPA issued another final rule to extend the compliance dates for all facilities and establishing new compliance dates for farms to address concerns with the regulation; this rule was subsequently withdrawn by EPA, pending further Agency review.
However, EPA published an interim final rule at the end of January 2009 to extend the effective date of the final rule, published in the Federal Register (FR) on December 05, 2008, to April 4, 2009. It is also requesting comment on the extension of the effective date and on SPCC requirements finalized in December 2008.
To gain a better understanding of compliance responsibilities, facility owners or operators that may be subject to SPCC regulations are urged to review both the 2008 and the 2006 final rules, as well as the 2008 direct final rule on the definition of "navigable waters." Oil and natural gas producers should also review the FR Notice published in May 2004 pertaining to certain issues arising from a legal settlement pertaining to American Petroleum Institute v. Leavitt et al. EPA Guidance for Regional Inspectors issued in 2005 may be useful to gain certain insights on compliance however as of January 2009 this document had not been updated to reflect the final rules issued in 2006 and 2008.
For a summary of state oil and natural gas regulations that may be similar to SPCC regulations, see the following reports. Neither may be sufficient to meet SPCC regulatory requirements for asserting environmental equivalence pursuant to Section 112(7)(a)(2) however they are useful resource documents.
To support the regulatory streamlining process, DOE in 2006 commissioned analyses on the potential cost and energy impacts of SPCC regulation on seven U.S. energy sectors. DOE routinely monitors proposed regulatory initiatives that may impact national energy policy objectives and works with other Federal agencies to support more cost-effective regulatory decisions based on sound technical and scientific information. Other documents related to the 2008 SPCC rule can be found in the EPA docket EPA-HQ-OPA-2007-0584 at www.regulations.gov.
The seven analyses are:
- Oil and Natural Gas Exploration and Production - 370KB PDF file
- Oil and Natural Gas Pipelines - 297KB PDF file
- Petroleum Refineries - 336KB PDF file
- Petroleum Bulk Storage and Distribution - 442KB PDF file
- Nuclear Emergency Diesel Generator Tanks - 145KB PDF file
- Electric Utility Substations - 59KB PDF file
- Wind Energy - 87KB PDF file
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