Environmental Law

Draft UECA Regulations Are Now Available for Review

By M. Joel Bolstein

The draft UECA regulations are now available on PADEP's website.   They aren't on the brownfields web page or on the UECA page.  They can be found as an agenda item to the most recent meeting of the Cleanup Standards Scientific Advisory Board (SAB).  The only reason why I found out about them was because I called Troy Conrad at PADEP, after having gotten word from an ECP manager in one of the regional offices that the Department was getting close to sending proposed regulations to the EQB.

I spoke with Troy Conrad this morning to get more information.  Although UECA does not set any deadline for the Department to promulgate regulations implementing UECA, the Department is making this a priority and would like to get the proposed regulations on the agenda for the EQB's meeting in December 2009.  The draft regulations were developed by an internal work group and vetted with the regional offices.  In advance of the EQB meeting, the draft regulations are being discussed with the SAB, the Storage Tank Advisory Board and the UECA Stakeholders Group, which I participated in.  Troy Conrad expects the UECA Stakeholders Group to meet to discuss the draft regulations in late October.   

I was also told by Troy that the Department is working on a companion document to the draft regulations that will provide guidance on the Department's use of the waiver authority granted in UECA.  The draft of the companion document is being worked on now and it is intended to go through the usual notice and comment that generally accompanies Department issued technical guidance documents.    

I haven't read through the draft regulations, but will do so and provide my thoughts in a future entry.  Troy didn't think I'd find anything that surprised me, but I'll withhold judgment on that for now. 

I commend Troy for moving forward with UECA regulations.  Up until now, the Department has been relying on fact sheets that can be found on the UECA web page.  That was fine for the early months after UECA was enacted and the Department had little advance warning to prepare guidance for staff and the regulated community.   At this point, lots of questions have arisen regarding UECA and it is important for the Department to get draft regulations out so it can receive comments, which undoubtedly will raise a host of issues that the Department will need to think through.   I am told by Troy that anyone who has comments about the draft regulations should feel free to send those comments to his attention at the Department.   Meaning, there is no reason to wait until the draft regulations have gone to the EQB.  If you have something on your mind, you should feel free to pass those thoughts along to the Department now.  Also, inasmuch as I will be participating in the UECA Stakeholders Group meeting in late October, if anyone has any thoughts or comments that they'd like me to bring to the table, feel free to shoot me a comment or an email.

Again, I'll have more thoughts once I get a chance to read through the draft regulations. 

Full post as published by PA Brownfields Environmental Law on September 24, 2009 (boomark / email).