Court mandates EPA review of oil and gas waste regulations

January 18th, 2017 by Dakota Software Staff Industry News

In recent years, the Environmental Protection Agency has been in the news for its major changes to environmental regulations. Large, broad-scope efforts like the Clean Power Plan have been championed by the federal agency. A recent federal district court decision is a departure from the regulator's usual attitude about environmental rules, as the judicial body forced the agency's hand in reviewing and potentially updating its oil and gas waste regulations.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a consent decree that requires the EPA take action on the matter through a rules review by March 2019, according to NPR. Law firm Katten Muchin Rosenman, LLP, said the EPA has a July 2021 deadline to complete additional rulemaking steps and take any final actions necessary to implement potential changes.

An overdue review
A coalition of seven environmental organizations brought the legal challenge against the EPA in May 2016, believing the regulator was skirting its mandatory duty to review rules related to waste created by oil and gas production. While the nature of a consent decree means neither party admits fault or liability, the court's instruction to the EPA is an indicator that - to one degree or another - both parties believed the need for regular, periodic review was clear.

The federal agency hadn't conducted a review of the oil and gas regulations since 1988, Katten Muchin Rosenman, LLP, said. The mandate for the regular review every three years stems from the 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Congress eventually exempted the classification of oil and gas waste as hazardous in 1980, but included a provision that allowed the EPA to review such substances in the future to determine emergent hazards and present potential regulations for dealing with them to Congress.

With the rise of fracking as a significant source of oil and natural gas, environmental groups believed the EPA needed to take a closer look at the processes involved and the potential for the creation of hazardous waste. With what the collective plaintiff group described as a victory, the federal regulator will now have to make a periodic and regular review of oil and gas drilling waste and implement new rules as necessary, following the three-year time frame.