Posted August 26, 2013
Senators Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and Mark Pryor (D-AR) recently sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) expressing concern about the agency’s plan to retroactively enforce the Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure (SPCC) rule on farmers, according to a Farm Futures article, available here.
The SPCC rule, available here,
went into effect on May 10. According to
a press
release from Sen. Inhofe’s office, the letter requested
clarification on the EPA’s interpretation of its authority with regard to
enforcing” the SPCC rule on farmers. The
letter, available here,
states, “It has come to our attention that the EPA is informing agriculture
producers that it does have the authority to begin enforcing the SPCC rule
retroactively beginning September 23.
Congress has repeatedly raised concerns about the implementation of this
rule within the agricultural sector, making these reports particularly
unsettling.”
The Hill reports that Pryor and Inhofe have “argued
that the SPCC regulations – designed to protect the environment – would be too
burdensome for farmers.” To comply with
the SPPC, “farmers would be required to install new double-walled engine oil
diesel storage containers, build berms around their storage facility locations,
and submit paperwork that must be certified by professional engineers proving
their farm is in compliance with the rules.”
According to The Hill
article, available here, Inhofe and Pryor
successfully amended the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) to permanently
exempt most farmers from the SPCC rule.
The House has not passed the WRDA bill, but added a similar provision to
its farm bill. Under “the 2013 continued
spending resolution (CR), Congress prohibited the EPA from using funds to
inspect, seek information or investigate SPCC compliance of farmers until after
Sept. 22.” The EPA said that “it is in
full compliance with the CR.”
