State of Louisiana Underground Injection Control Program; Class VI Primacy

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 147</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OW-2023-0073; FRL 9916-02-OW]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>State of Louisiana Underground Injection Control Program; Class VI Primacy</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency is approving an application from the state of Louisiana to revise the state's Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) section 1422 underground injection control (UIC) program to include Class VI injection well primary enforcement responsibility (primacy). This final rule allows the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources to issue UIC permits for geologic carbon sequestration facilities as Class VI wells and ensure compliance of Class VI wells under the UIC program within the state. The EPA will remain the permitting authority for all well classes in Indian lands within the state and will also oversee Louisiana's administration of the state's UIC Class VI program as authorized under SDWA. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on February 5, 2024. The Director of the Federal Register approved this incorporation by reference in accordance with 5 U.S.C. 552(a) and 1 CFR part 51 on February 5, 2024. For judicial purposes, this final rule is promulgated as of January 5, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2023-0073. All documents in the docket are listed on the <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov</E> website. Although listed in the index, some information is not publicly available, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> confidential business information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is restricted by law. Certain other material, such as copyrighted material, is not placed on the internet and will be publicly available only in hard copy form. Publicly available docket materials are available electronically through <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Suzanne Kelly, Drinking Water Infrastructure Development Division, Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water (4606M), Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20460; telephone number: (202) 564-3887; or Lisa Pham, U.S. EPA Region 6, Groundwater/UIC Section (Mail code WDDG), 1201 Elm Street, Suite 500, Dallas, Texas 75720-2102; telephone number: (214) 665-8326. Both can be reached by emailing: <E T="03">LAClassVINOA@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Introduction</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. UIC Program and Primary Enforcement Authority (Primacy)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Class VI Wells Under the UIC Program</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Louisiana UIC Programs</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Final Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Legal Authorities</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Louisiana's Application for Class VI Primacy</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Public Participation Activities Conducted by Louisiana</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Environmental Justice (EJ) in Class VI Permitting</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Summary of the EPA's Comprehensive Evaluation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Public Participation Activities Conducted by the EPA</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Public Comments and the EPA's Responses</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Public Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. The EPA's Response to Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Incorporation by Reference</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Executive Order 12866: Regulatory Planning and Review and Executive Order 14094: Modernizing Regulatory Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Executive Order 13132: Federalism</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Executive Order 13175: Consultation and Coordination With Indian Tribal Governments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Executive Order 13045: Protection of Children From Environmental Health and Safety Risks</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Executive Order 13211: Actions Concerning Regulations That Significantly Affect Energy Supply, Distribution, or Use</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. Executive Order 12898: Federal Actions To Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations; Executive Order 14096: Revitalizing Our Nation's Commitment to Environmental Justice for All</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">K. Congressional Review Act (CRA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. References</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. UIC Program and Primary Enforcement Authority (Primacy)</HD> The Safe Drinking Water Act (also known as SDWA), 42 U.S.C. 300h-1, was passed by Congress in 1974. It protects public health by regulating the nation's public drinking water supply, including both surface and groundwater sources. The SDWA requires the EPA to develop requirements for state and Tribal Underground Injection Control programs. These programs regulate the injection of fluids (such as water, wastewater, brines from oil and gas production, and carbon dioxide) to protect underground sources of drinking water. USDWs are aquifers or parts of aquifers that supply a public water system or contain enough groundwater to supply a public water system. <E T="03">See</E> 40 CFR 144.3. The UIC program regulates various aspects of an injection well project. These include technical aspects throughout the lifetime of the project from site characterization, construction, operation, and testing and monitoring through site closure, as well as permitting, site inspections, and reporting to ensure well owners and operators comply with UIC regulations. SDWA section 1422 directs the EPA to establish requirements that states, territories, and federally recognized Tribes (hereafter referred to as applicants) must meet to be granted primary enforcement responsibility or “primacy” for implementing a UIC program, including a Class VI program. An applicant seeking primacy under SDWA section 1422 for a Class VI program must demonstrate to the EPA that the applicant's Class VI program meets federal requirements to protect USDWs, including jurisdiction over underground injection and provisions for the necessary civil and criminal enforcement remedies under SDWA. The EPA conducts a comprehensive technical and legal evaluation of each primacy application to assess and confirm that the proposed program meets the federal regulatory requirements and to evaluate the effectiveness of the state's proposed program at protecting USDWs. Louisiana's application included the following elements: Louisiana's Class VI-related UIC statutes and regulations; documents describing Louisiana's public participation process when adopting its proposed Class VI program; a letter from the Governor of Louisiana requesting Class VI primacy; a Program Description that explains how the state intends to carry out its responsibilities; a state Attorney General's Class VI statement of enforcement authority; and an addendum to the existing Memorandum of Agreement between the EPA and Louisiana describing the administration, implementation, and enforcement of the Louisiana's Class VI program. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Class VI Wells Under the UIC Program</HD> Class VI wells are used to inject carbon dioxide into deep rock formations for the purpose of long-term underground storage, also known as geologic sequestration. Geologic sequestration, when used as a part of carbon capture and storage and carbon dioxide removal projects (such as projects that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere), is a promising tool for reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Class VI injection wells are regulated under an existing, rigorous SDWA permitting framework that protects USDWs. The UIC Class VI program provides multiple safeguards that work together to protect USDWs and human health. Owners or operators that wish to inject carbon dioxide for the purpose of geologic sequestration must demonstrate that their injection well will meet all regulatory requirements and receive a Class VI permit for each well. The UIC Class VI program requires applicants to meet strict technical, financial, and reporting and record keeping requirements to obtain a Class VI permit, including: • Site characterization to ensure the geology in the project area will contain the carbon dioxide within the zone where it will be injected. • Modeling to delineate the predicted area influenced by injection activities through the lifetime of operation. • Evaluation of the delineated area to ensure all potential pathways for fluid movement have been identified and addressed through corrective action. • Well construction requirements that ensure the Class VI injection well will not leak carbon dioxide. • Testing and monitoring throughout the life of the project, including after carbon dioxide injection has ended. Requirements include, for example, testing to ensure physical integrity of the well, monitoring for seismic activity near the injection site, monitoring of injection pressure and flow, chemical analysis of the carbon dioxide stream that is being injected, and monitoring the extent of the injected carbon dioxide plume and the surrounding area ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> ground water) to ensure the carbon dioxide is contained as predicted. • Operating requirements ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> injection pres ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 70k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━