Texas Underground Injection Control (UIC) Program; Class VI Primacy

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 147</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OW-2025-0157; FRL 12672-01-OW]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Texas Underground Injection Control (UIC) Program; Class VI Primacy</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) has received a complete Underground Injection Control (UIC) program revision application from the State of Texas, requesting primary enforcement responsibility (primacy) for Class VI injection wells under Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) section 1422. The EPA's approval would allow the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) to issue and enforce compliance with UIC Class VI permits for injection wells used for geologic carbon sequestration. In this action, the EPA proposes to approve Texas' application to implement the UIC program for Class VI injection wells located within the State, except those on Indian lands. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before August 1, 2025. <E T="03"> Public hearing:</E> The EPA will hold one virtual public hearing during the comment period. Please refer to the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section for additional information on the public hearing. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may send comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2025-0157 by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov/</E> (our preferred method). Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Docket Center, Water Docket, Mail Code 28221T, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20460. • <E T="03">Hand Delivery or Courier:</E> EPA Docket Center, WJC West Building, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004. The Docket Center's hours of operations are 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday (except Federal Holidays). <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All submissions received must include the Docket ID No. for this rulemaking. Comments received may be posted without change to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/,</E> including personal information provided. For detailed instructions on sending comments and additional information on the rulemaking process, see the “Public Participation” heading of the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section of this document. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Kyle Carey, 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) 564-2322; or Lisa Pham, UIC/Groundwater Section, Water Division, Region 6, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1201 Elm Street, Suite 500, Dallas, Texas 75270; telephone number: (214) 665-8326; fax: (214) 665-6490. Both can be reached by emailing <E T="03">UICprimacy@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Public Participation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Written Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Participation in Public Hearing</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Public Participation Activities Conducted by Texas</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. 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. Texas UIC Program</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Legal Authorities</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. The EPA's Evaluation of Texas' Program Revision Application</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Summary of the EPA's Comprehensive Evaluation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. The EPA's Proposed Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Incorporation by Reference</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Statutory and Executive Orders 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. Executive Order 14192: Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Executive Order 13132: Federalism</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Executive Order 13175: Consultation and Coordination With Indian Tribal Governments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Executive Order 13045: Protection of Children From Environmental Health and Safety Risks</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. Executive Order 13211: Actions Concerning Regulations That Significantly Affect Energy Supply, Distribution, or Use</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act (NTTAA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. References</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Public Participation</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Written Comments</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2025-0157, at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> (our preferred method), or the other methods identified in the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section. Once submitted, comments cannot be edited or removed from the docket. The EPA may publish any comment received to its public docket. Do not submit to the EPA's docket at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> any information you consider to be Confidential Business Information (CBI), Proprietary Business Information (PBI), or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. If you wish to submit CBI, contact Lisa Pham using the contact information available in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. Multimedia submissions (audio, video, etc.) must be accompanied by a written comment. The written comment is considered the official comment and should include discussion of all points you wish to make. The EPA will generally not consider comments or comment contents located outside of the primary submission ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> on the web, cloud, or other file sharing system). Please visit <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets</E> for additional submission methods; the full EPA public comment policy; information about CBI, PBI, or multimedia submissions; and general guidance on making effective comments. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Participation in Public Hearing</HD> The EPA will hold one virtual public hearing during the public comment period. To register to speak at the virtual hearing, please use the online registration form available at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/uic/underground-injection-control-epa-region-6-ar-la-nm-ok-and-tx</E> or contact us by email at <E T="03">UICprimacy@epa.gov.</E> One week prior to the public hearing, the EPA will post a general agenda for the hearing that will list pre-registered speakers in approximate order at: <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/uic/underground-injection-control-epa-region-6-ar-la-nm-ok-and-tx.</E> Please refer to <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/uic/underground-injection-control-epa-region-6-ar-la-nm-ok-and-tx</E> for additional updates, including the date and time, related to this public hearing. The EPA will make every effort to follow the schedule as closely as possible on the day of the hearing; however, please plan for the hearings to run either ahead of schedule or behind schedule. Each commenter will have three minutes to provide oral testimony. The EPA encourages commenters to provide the EPA with a copy of their oral testimony electronically by emailing it to <E T="03">UICprimacy@epa.gov.</E> The EPA also recommends submitting the text of your oral comments as written comments to the rulemaking docket. The EPA will make every effort to accommodate all speakers who register, although preferences on speaking times may not be able to be fulfilled. The EPA may ask clarifying questions during the oral presentations but will not respond to the presentations at that time. Written statements and supporting information submitted during the comment period will be considered with the same weight as oral comments and supporting information presented at the public hearing. Updates on the virtual hearing logistics will be posted online at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/uic/underground-injection-control-epa-region-6-ar-la-nm-ok-and-tx.</E> Please contact Kyle Carey at (202) 564-2322 or email <E T="03">UICprimacy@epa.gov</E> with any questions about the virtual hearing. The EPA does not intend to publish a document in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> announcing updates related to the public hearing. If you require the services of an interpreter or special accommodations such as audio description, please pre-register for the hearing at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/uic/underground-injection-control-epa-region-6-ar-la-nm-ok-and-tx</E> and describe your needs at least one week prior to the public hearing date. The EPA may not be able to arrange accommodations without advance notice. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Public Participation Activities Conducted by Texas</HD> The RRC proposed regulations for the geologic storage of carbon dioxide (CO <E T="52">2</E> ) in a notice and request for comment published on its website on September 29, 2010, and in the Texas Register on October 15, 2010. On December 17, 2010, the RRC responded to comments and adopted final regulations (16 Tex. Admin. Code §§ 5.101-5.308). On March 20, 2012, the RRC proposed amendments to its CO <E T="52">2</E> geologic storage regulations. The RRC provided notice of these proposed amendments through the Te ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 41k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━