EPA on Thursday finalized a new regulation requiring industrial facilities that store hazardous substances to develop emergency response plans to deal with the worst-case scenario for discharges into federal waters.
The rule applies to around 5,400 facilities across a wide swath of industries, including oil and gas producers, utilities, mining, and manufacturing plants that store chemicals such as hydrochloric acid, arsenic and benzene that could leak into waterways.
Environmental groups sued EPA in 2019, arguing that the agency had never carried out part of a 1992 update to the Clean Water Act that requires facilities to prepare emergency response plans and share them with EPA. The Trump administration reached a deal to issue the rule.
EPA issued a similar rule in 1994 covering worst-case discharges of oil.
