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EPA lets refineries miss deadline - again "Duh"

MrBillPro on Sun December 12, 2004 9:29 PM User is offlineView users profile

Dec. 12, 2004, 1:38PM
EPA lets refineries miss deadline - again
Associated Press

FORT WORTH -- Federal officials have quietly allowed the nation's oil refineries to miss court-ordered deadlines to reduce air emissions, prolonging the public's exposure to dangerous pollutants, a newspaper investigation has found.


Nearly every time, the Environmental Protection Agency failed to tell the courts or the public about the deadline extensions, even when legal settlements required it to do so, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported today.

Because of those extensions, the EPA's Petroleum Refinery Initiative has not achieved the air quality improvements that the agency has claimed, the newspaper found.

Under the initiative, the EPA uses legal settlements known as consent decrees to resolve decades of alleged pollution violations. In return for installing pollution controls and paying a fine, companies are immediately released from all legal liability.

Tom Skinner, the EPA's top enforcement official, touted in an October news release that settlements under the initiative have reduced emissions of air pollutants by 200,000 tons per year at 48 refineries in 24 states.

But a review of data conducted by the newspaper found the reductions actually total only about a fifth of that amount.

Skinner later backed off his October claim, saying that the agency expects to meet the 200,000-ton goal by the time all the controls are implemented.

"I'm sorry if that was misleading," he said. "When I reread it, I cringed and realized you could look at it a different way."

Many delays have been caused by the widespread failure of pollution-control technology and equipment. Refinery officials also said some deadlines were unrealistic.

The problems led to deadline extensions at two of every three refineries with court-approved settlements.

Skinner acknowledged that the agency should have informed the public about the delays. He said the EPA already has devised an informal policy under which revisions will either require amendments or be filed with federal courts.

But he is adamant that all the projects eventually will be completed.

"There was never any intent on our part to change the terms of the consent decrees by extensions or other modifications in order to cut anybody a break," he said.

But compliance suffers if changes are routinely made, said Patrick Parenteau, director of the Vermont Law School's Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic.

"If the deadlines don't mean anything, then the incentive of the companies is to agree to enter into these things and then roll them back," he said.

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Don't take life seriously... Its not permanent.

NickD on Mon December 13, 2004 9:09 AM User is offline

Meaux and I have a solution to this problem.....move.

meaux on Mon December 13, 2004 9:40 AM User is offlineView users profile

LOL! Right Nick!

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Lazy bum who lives off his wife.

01 BMW 530i Sport, 92 Porsche 968, 85 F150, 72 911, 08 GM SUV, 01' Ford Lightnin'

JJM on Mon December 13, 2004 3:07 PM User is offline

EPA lets refineries miss deadline - again... and this is a BAD thing? Refinieries shouldn't have to deal with the EPA at all. With the $2/gal gasoline and heating oil, it's the least the EPA can do.

Imagine if the other guy won.

If we're really serious about energy security, the EPA should be shut down and environmental regulations repealed. And lawyers who file all these lawsuits against our energy industries should be detained.

Joe

NickD on Tue December 14, 2004 7:30 AM User is offline

I can't share your views on this subject when you have lived way out in the country and a corporation built a highly polluting industry 1/4 mile down the road, feels the air and water with poison and your entire family suddenly becomes ill. The rotten EPA put the burden of proof on my shoulders and since then I have viewed the EPA as a very corrupt agency. But some good things were accomplished, Lake Michigan is clean again, recall walking on the beach with thousands of dead fish.

For industries that pollute and poison the air causing strange forms of cancer where some just very simple steps would prevent it should be done, but as it is, most of the industries are being exported to Mexico and China, that is not the solution either.

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