As Pruitt Guts Water Rules, EPA Will Allow Fracking Waste Dumping in the Gulf of Mexico.
As the Trump administration moves to gut Obama-era clean water protections nationwide, an environmental group is warning the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that its draft pollution discharge permit for offshore drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico violates clean water laws because it allows operators to dump fracking chemicals and large volumes of drilling wastewater directly into the Gulf.
Under current rules established by the Obama administration, offshore oil and gas platforms can discharge well-treatment chemicals and unlimited amounts of "produced waters" from undersea wells directly into the Gulf as long as operators perform toxicity tests a few times a year and monitor for "sheens" on the water’s surface.
The latest draft of the pollution discharge permit, which was largely prepared under the Obama administration, would require drillers to collect information on the fracking chemicals they dump overboard.
The Center, along with other environmental groups and the state of California, argue in separate lawsuits that federal regulators did not do enough to study and mitigate the environmental impacts of offshore fracking before allowing operators to use the technology in Pacific waters.
The Center may have trouble convincing the EPA to change the draft pollution discharge permit for the Gulf of Mexico without taking the agency to court.
Republicans Put Clean Water Rule in the Crosshairs Pruitt is currently working to repeal the Clean Water Rule, an Obama-era regulation expanding the number of tributaries and wetlands located upstream from major bodies of water that are protected by the Clean Water Act.
Last week, the House Appropriations Committee, lead by Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson, approved an energy and water appropriations bill containing a rider that would waive the federal administrative requirements for rescinding the Clean Water Rule.
Water Pollution and the Gulf of Mexico Under the Clean Water Act, polluters must receive a permit from the EPA or state regulators before discharging pollutants into a body of water under federal jurisdiction.
It’s a draft of this permit that is currently under fire from environmentalists because it would allow the dumping of fracking chemicals and "produced water" from oil and gas wells.