The House on Friday defeated an attempt to remove from the broad energy bill a proposal to expand a current exemption for producers from stormwater discharge regulations under federal clean water laws.

By a vote of 210 to 188, House lawmakers shot down a motion, offered by Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA), to instruct energy bill conferees to eliminate a proposed expansion of an exemption for oil and natural gas activities from the legislation (HR 6).

Under existing law, producers are not required to obtain stormwater discharge permits from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for non-contaminated substances that may be emitted from their drilling operations into nearby water bodies. The permit exclusion has been limited to actual drilling activities.

The energy bill, however, seeks to clarify that the exemption extends to pre-drilling activities as well — such as preparing a site for drilling and the movement and placement of drilling equipment.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) argued that the EPA has been doing a “back door, an end [run]” around existing law by requiring permits for pre-drilling construction activities, but not active drilling.

The statutory language of the Clean Water Act, which Congress passed in 1987, “seems clear that any matter of stormwater collection, whether it is a ditch, a culvert under a road, a diversion channel around an oil and gas well location, does not have to be permitted by the EPA. We could not be more clear. But the EPA has sought to regulate the building of oil and gas location sites by insisting on…stormwater discharge permits for the construction of the site,” he said.

“If you apply common sense to the plain meaning of the statute, [it] would show that activities necessary to prepare a site for drilling and for the movement and placement of drilling equipment are part and parcel of the operation. You cannot have one without the other. Therefore, a statutory exclusion for one totally encompasses the other as well.”

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