FUELS Act

Farmers Undertake Environmental Land Stewardship Act or the FUELS Act

This bill increases thresholds for requiring a farm to have a plan to address oil spills.

Currently, regulations require a farm to have an oil spill control and prevention plan that is certified by a professional engineer if the farm's aboveground oil storage capacity is above a certain threshold or if the farm has a reportable oil discharge history. A farm with lower aboveground storage capacity and no reportable history is either allowed to self-certify its plan or not required to have a plan at all, depending on the farm's storage capacity.    

Under the bill, the Environmental Protection Agency must require a farm to have a professionally certified plan if the farm has an aggregate aboveground oil storage capacity of 40,000 gallons or more, whereas the current threshold is 20,000 gallons. The bill also raises the aggregate capacity thresholds at which a farm with no reportable oil discharge history may self-certify its plan or is not required to have a plan.

The bill also limits when a farm's aboveground oil storage containers on separate parcels shall count toward the farm's oil storage capacity for the purposes of these thresholds.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 8292 Introduced in House (IH)]

<DOC>






116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 8292

 To amend the Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014 with 
   respect to the application of the Spill Prevention, Control, and 
     Countermeasure rule to certain farms, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           September 17, 2020

 Mr. Crawford (for himself and Mr. Newhouse) introduced the following 
    bill; which was referred to the Committee on Transportation and 
                             Infrastructure

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To amend the Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014 with 
   respect to the application of the Spill Prevention, Control, and 
     Countermeasure rule to certain farms, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Farmers Undertake Environmental Land 
Stewardship Act'' or the ``FUELS Act''.

SEC. 2. APPLICABILITY OF SPILL PREVENTION, CONTROL, AND COUNTERMEASURE 
              RULE.

    Section 1049 of the Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 
2014 (33 U.S.C. 1361 note) is amended--
            (1) in subsection (b)--
                    (A) in paragraph (1)(B), by striking ``20,000'' and 
                inserting ``42,000'';
                    (B) by amending paragraph (2)(A) to read as 
                follows:
                    ``(A) an aggregate aboveground storage capacity 
                greater than 10,000 gallons but less than 42,000 
                gallons; and'';
                    (C) in paragraph (3)--
                            (i) by amending subparagraph (A) to read as 
                        follows:
                    ``(A) with an aggregate aboveground storage 
                capacity of less than or equal to 10,000 gallons; 
                and''; and
                            (ii) in subparagraph (B), by striking ``; 
                        and'' and inserting a period; and
                    (D) by striking paragraph (4);
            (2) in subsection (c)(2)(A)--
                    (A) in clause (i), by striking ``1,000'' and 
                inserting ``1,320''; and
                    (B) in clause (ii), by striking ``2,500'' and 
                inserting ``3,000''; and
            (3) by striking subsection (d).
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