RCRA CO2 EXEMPTION RULE TO BE FINALIZED NEXT MONTH, OMB SAYS

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
7/12/13

The White House has indicated that the Environmental Protection Agency will finalize its rulemaking conditionally excluding geologically sequestered CO2 from its definition of hazardous waste next month following a promulgation period that has stretched on for nearly two years. The Office of Management and Budget released its regulatory agenda for the coming months on its website earlier this week, and within the EPA’s list is the hazardous waste exclusion rule, which has been delayed for months. EPA had proposed the exclusion in August 2011 after multiple public comments on the Agency’s then-new class of injection wells for CO2 sequestration (Class VI) sought clarification about how the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act’s (RCRA) hazardous waste requirements would apply to CO2 streams.

The exclusion aims to ease the regulatory burden on the operators of carbon sequestration sites by conditionally excluding supercritical CO2 streams injected into Class VI Underground Injection Control (UIC) wells from EPA’s definition of hazardous waste under RCRA. EPA said it proposed the exclusion for the Class VI wells—but not enhanced oil recovery wells permitted under UIC’s Class II—because carbon sequestration does not appear to cause “substantial” harm to public health or the environment. “Based on review of existing regulatory programs, EPA’s proposal concludes that the management of CO2 streams under the proposed conditions does not present a substantial risk to people’s health or the environment, provides regulatory certainty to industries considering the use of CCS technologies and encourages the deployment of CCS technologies in a safe and environmentally protective manner,” the agency said in 2011.

Under the RCRA exclusion as proposed, storage site operators would still be required to comply with EPA Safe Drinking Water Act standards for planning, construction, testing, monitoring and closure. While no CO2 sequestration projects are currently being operated under the Class VI categorization, multiple large-scale projects in Illinois—FutureGen 2.0 and Archer Daniels Midland’s ethanol capture project near Decatur—have begun pursuing that class of permit. While some CCS stakeholders have spoken out in favor of the exclusion, saying it would cut down on paperwork, compliance costs and time required to move forward on the regulatory front, some environmental groups have said the exemption is premature given the state of the technology and lack of long-term data.