[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 40 (Tuesday, March 11, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H2264-H2266]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          FARMERS UNDERTAKE ENVIRONMENTAL LAND STEWARDSHIP ACT

  Mr. CRAWFORD. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (H.R. 311) to direct the Administrator of the Environmental 
Protection Agency to change the Spill Prevention, Control, and 
Countermeasure rule with respect to certain farms.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                                H.R. 311

       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.

       (a) In General.--The Administrator, in implementing the 
     Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure rule with 
     respect to any farm, shall--
       (1) require certification of compliance with such rule by--
       (A) a professional engineer for a farm with--

[[Page H2265]]

       (i) an individual tank with an aboveground storage capacity 
     greater than 10,000 gallons;
       (ii) an aggregate aboveground storage capacity greater than 
     or equal to 42,000 gallons; or
       (iii) a history that includes a spill, as determined by the 
     Administrator; or
       (B) the owner or operator of the farm (via self-
     certification) for a farm with--
       (i) an aggregate aboveground storage capacity greater than 
     10,000 gallons but less than 42,000 gallons; and
       (ii) no history of spills, as determined by the 
     Administrator; and
       (2) exempt from all requirements of such rule any farm--
       (A) with an aggregate aboveground storage capacity of less 
     than or equal to 10,000 gallons; and
       (B) no history of spills, as determined by the 
     Administrator.
       (b) Calculation of Aggregate Aboveground Storage 
     Capacity.--For the purposes of subsection (a), the aggregate 
     aboveground storage capacity of a farm excludes all 
     containers on separate parcels that have a capacity that is 
     less than 1,320 gallons.

     SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.

       In this Act, the following terms apply:
       (1) Administrator.--The term ``Administrator'' means the 
     Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
       (2) Farm.--The term ``farm'' has the meaning given such 
     term in section 112.2 of title 40, Code of Federal 
     Regulations.
       (3) Gallon.--The term ``gallon'' refers to a United States 
     liquid gallon.
       (4) Spill prevention, control, and countermeasure rule.--
     The term ``Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure 
     rule'' means the regulation promulgated by the Environmental 
     Protection Agency under part 112 of title 40, Code of Federal 
     Regulations.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Arkansas (Mr. Crawford) and the gentlewoman from the District of 
Columbia (Ms. Norton) each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Arkansas.


                             General Leave

  Mr. CRAWFORD. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks 
and include extraneous materials on H.R. 311.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Arkansas?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. CRAWFORD. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the Farmers Undertake Environmental Land Stewardship 
Act--or the FUELS Act--is an important piece of legislation that brings 
much-needed relief to the Nation's agricultural community. H.R. 311 is 
a bipartisan bill that currently has 73 cosponsors from Members on both 
sides of the aisle.
  It passed the House unanimously last Congress and again last year as 
an amendment to the farm bill. Additionally, this legislation has 
gained the support of more than 30 producer organizations, including 
every major farm group.
  The EPA-mandated SPCC--or Spill Prevention, Control, and 
Countermeasure--rules requires that oil storage facilities with a 
capacity of over 1,320 gallons make costly infrastructure modifications 
to reduce the possibility of oil spills.
  These mandated infrastructure improvements, along with the necessary 
inspection and certification by a specially licensed professional 
engineer, would cost farmers tens of thousands of dollars.
  The SPCC program dates back to 1973, shortly after the Clean Water 
Act was signed into law. In the last decade, it has come down harshly 
on agriculture, and the rules have been amended, delayed, and extended 
dozens of times, creating enormous confusion in the farming community.
  On top of that, the EPA has failed to engage in effective outreach to 
producers and cooperatives on SPCC's compliance.
  The FUELS Act is simple. It revises the SPCC regulations to be 
reflective of a producer's spill risk and their financial resources. 
The exemption level would be adjusted upward from an unworkable 1,320 
gallons of oil storage to an amount that would protect small farms, 
10,000 gallons.
  The bill would also place a greater degree of responsibility on 
farmers and ranchers to self-certify compliance if their oil storage 
facilities exceed their exemption level. To add another layer of 
environmental production, the producer must be able to demonstrate that 
he or she has no history of oil spills.
  The University of Arkansas conducted a study, concluding that this 
bill would exempt over 80 percent of producers from SPCC compliance, 
saving up to $240 million in costs in Arkansas alone. For the entire 
country, it could save small farmers up to $3.36 billion.
  The last thing the government should be doing is imposing an 
expensive regulatory burden on farming families. There is no scientific 
justification for such action, bolstered by the fact that the EPA 
cannot provide data or even anecdotal evidence of agricultural spills.
  A 2005 USDA report found that more than 99 percent of farms surveyed 
haven't experienced a single incident. In fact, one year after this 
report was published, EPA endorsed the 10,000-gallon exemption 
threshold I am proposing in this bill. Unfortunately, they moved the 
goalpost again a few years later.
  By the nature of their occupation, family farmers are already very 
careful stewards of the land and water. No one has more at stake than 
those who work on the ground from which they derive their livelihood.
  I urge support of the FUELS Act and our Nation's small farmers.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my concern on consideration of H.R. 
311. This legislation would inexplicably weaken environmental 
safeguards against oil spills for one specific sector of our economy, 
American farms.
  Under current law, any facility that stores certain quantities of oil 
is required to take precautionary steps to prevent the discharge of oil 
into U.S. waters. These requirements apply across the board based on 
the quantity of oil stored in the facility, which can range from an 
industrial facility to a service station to, of course, a farm.
  These steps, outlined in the EPA's implementation regulations, known 
as the Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure--or SPCC--rule, 
require facilities put in place appropriate measures to prevent any 
spilled oil from entering the water, which can include both the 
construction of containment systems or more simplistic measures to 
capture small leaks.
  The SPCC rule also requires such facilities to have a plan in place 
in advance that identifies additional measures to clean up any oil that 
might otherwise escape such containment. These provisions generally 
have been in place since 1974 and have been in force for farmers since 
May 2013.

  Since that time, all farmers who fall within the guidelines of the 
SPCC rule should now have put in place appropriately scaled 
countermeasures based on the size of their facility and the likelihood 
of an oil spill reaching U.S. waters; yet H.R. 311 would modify the 
existing obligations for farmers to comply with the SPCC rule.
  In many instances, H.R. 311 would alleviate existing SPCC obligations 
for farmers to develop oil spill contingency plans, especially for 
those farmers that store less than 10,000 gallons of oil in above-
ground containers.
  In summary, this bill would tell farmers that currently have these 
measures in place to stop taking precautionary efforts to prevent 
spills.
  Why does this legislation make this change? Is it because the oil 
stored on farms is less likely to spill or to pollute U.S. waters than 
other facilities that store oil? There is no empirical evidence in the 
committee record that this is the case.
  Is it because the oil stored on farms is any different from oil 
stored at other facilities? Again, the answer is likely no.
  The stated reason for this legislation is that these safeguards 
simply cost too much for American farmers, but the reality is, for many 
farmers, many of these costs have already taken place, especially any 
capital costs that might have been required for containment structures.
  So, in reality, many of the compliance cost concerns expressed in 
this bill may well be overstated, as annual compliance costs may now be 
reduced simply to cover periodic maintenance.
  Mr. Speaker, again, I have concerns with this legislation, and I hope 
that, as we continue to work through this issue, we will come up with a 
more sensible way of addressing the protection

[[Page H2266]]

of our American farms, as well as the protection of our U.S. waters.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

                            Natural Resources Defense Council,

                                   Washington, DC, March 11, 2014.
     House of Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Representative: Today, March 11, the House of 
     Representatives is scheduled to consider H.R. 311, under 
     suspension of the rules. This bill would decrease the 
     oversight of oil storage and safeguards against spills at 
     locations around the country for one class of facilities 
     without showing that they are safer than other facilities 
     with the same volume of oil.
       H.R. 311 increases the amount of storage capacity that 
     triggers various requirements under the spill prevention, 
     control and countermeasure (SPCC) rules for any ``farm,'' 
     defined as ``a facility on a tract of land devoted to the 
     production of crops or raising of animals, including fish, 
     which produced and sold, or normally would have produced and 
     sold, $1,000 or more of agricultural products during a 
     year.'' Consequently, more operations will be subject to 
     weaker requirements or will be exempt altogether, as compared 
     to the safeguards currently in place.
       Oil is no less harmful to waterways and the people and 
     wildlife that depend on the nation's waters if it happens to 
     be spilled at an agricultural operation. It is common sense 
     that any facility located such that a spill could reasonably 
     reach waterways and cause harm--including agricultural 
     facilities--should take steps to prevent spills and plan to 
     respond to those that occur. Coming so soon after the 
     chemical and coal slurry spills in West Virginia and the coal 
     ash spill in North Carolina, it is nothing short of 
     astonishing that Congress would weaken protections that seek 
     to prevent, plan for, and address spills that could 
     contaminate drinking water supplies or harm aquatic life.
       The changes that H.R. 311 would impose would weaken current 
     protections enormously. Take for instance the provisions that 
     exempt facilities from the SPCC requirements; under H.R. 311, 
     agri-businesses with an ``aggregate aboveground storage 
     capacity'' of oil of 10,000 gallons or less would be exempt, 
     compared with 1,320 gallons under current law. That provision 
     alone is troubling, but the bill is even weaker than it 
     appears at first blush, as it would also change the threshold 
     for storage containers that can be ignored in the calculation 
     of aboveground storage capacity from 55 gallons to 1,320 
     gallons, so long as a facility has not had a history of 
     spills. That would allow covered operations to avoid the SPCC 
     planning and prevention requirements entirely by having an 
     unlimited number of 1,319-gallon tanks on site.
       Agri-business operations already have been given 
     significant flexibility in meeting the SPCC requirements. 
     They have had an extended period of time to comply with 
     changes to the applicable provisions; other facilities have 
     been subject to these requirements since 2010 or 2011, 
     whereas agri-businesses with the requisite oil storage 
     capacity were due to comply in May, 2013. Section 1416 of the 
     March, 2013 continuing resolution, Public Law 113-6, later 
     prohibited the use of funds to enforce this requirement until 
     September, 2013. The rules also provide flexibility in 
     developing plans for certain operations with smaller storage 
     volumes and a good history with respect to spills. And EPA 
     provided for individual extensions of the deadline under some 
     circumstances. Given that the deadline has now passed for 
     farms, it is hard to understand what H.R. 311 would 
     accomplish, aside from allowing newly-exempt operators to 
     ignore the plans and procedures they have already developed, 
     and rewarding those facilities that did not comply with the 
     rules on time.
       Congress should not gamble the nation's water resources for 
     the sake of one industry. Please maintain sensible safeguards 
     against oil spills and oppose H.R. 311.
           Sincerely,

                                              Scott Slesinger,

                                             Legislative Director,
                                Natural Resources Defense Council.

  Mr. CRAWFORD. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time and 
yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. CRAWFORD. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlelady for her 
comments. I would say that the 10,000-gallon threshold that we have 
described here is actually taken right from the EPA.
  Up to 2005, they were perfectly comfortable with the 10,000-gallon 
threshold, so we are basically saying that we definitely want to work 
with the EPA and use the thresholds that they see as viable or that 
they did see up to that point.
  The other thing is that, in agriculture, it is not a one-size-fits-
all type of a scenario, where there are different scales of production 
and different levels of production.
  Economies of scale are certainly better equipped and use lots more 
fuel on their farm, and so we are trying to implement some guidelines 
that do respect the financial resources as well as the size of the 
operation.
  And, again, there is no empirical evidence that there have been any 
kind of spills that would warrant this level of regulation for farmers 
and certainly not to the degree that 1,320 gallons calls for, and that 
would catch up virtually every farmer in the United States.
  What we are trying to do is to implement some common sense into this 
in a way that even the EPA has already agreed to in past rules; so I 
just would, again, urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this 
important legislation. This will be, I believe, in total, the sixth 
time that we will have passed this out of the House.
  Again, I think this is good commonsense legislation. I urge my 
colleagues to join in supporting H.R. 311.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Crawford) that the House suspend the rules 
and pass the bill, H.R. 311.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the 
rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________