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EPA Could Regulate Drilling Waste, With Congress' Approval

Date: November 5, 2012

Source: News Room

In a new report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) is suggesting that EPA should, with Congressional approval, begin to regulate drilling wastes, which are currently exempt under the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA), under a "wastestream by wastestream" approach. In its Oct. 9 report on EPA's authority to oversee hydraulic fracturing, "Unconventional Oil and Gas Development: Key Environmental and Public Health Requirements," the GAO says EPA could address environmental groups' concerns about the increasing toxicity and volumes of drilling wastes by revisiting its 1988 finding that these wastes need not be regulated. The report says that if EPA were to repeal or narrow the current RCRA exemption for drilling wastes as environmentalists are seeking, it would not subject all drilling wastes to blanket hazardous waste regulation under RCRA subtitle C, but the agency would have to determine on a case-by-case basis which byproducts meet the characteristicsof hazardous waste, such as ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity and toxicity.

"Should the exemption be lifted, not all exploration and production wastes would necessarily be hazardous," GAO says. "Rather, whether particular exploration and production wastes would be hazardous and subject to regulation would depend on whether those particular wastes meet the regulatory definition of hazardous (i.e., are a listed waste or exhibit a characteristic of hazardous waste)," the report says.

However, GAO is also warning that "Under the key RCRA provision, the regulations would not become effective until authorized by Congressional action."

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