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

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 147</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OW-2025-0157; FRL 12672-02-OW]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Texas Underground Injection Control (UIC) Program; Class VI Primacy Application</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is approving an application from the State of Texas (the State) that requests primary enforcement responsibility (primacy) for Class VI injection wells under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) section 1422. The EPA's approval of the State's UIC program revision application will allow the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) to issue and enforce compliance with UIC Class VI permits for injection wells used for geologic carbon sequestration. The EPA will remain the permitting authority for Class VI wells on Indian lands within the State. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on December 15, 2025. The incorporation by reference of certain material listed in this rule is approved by the Director of the Federal Register as of December 15, 2025. For judicial purposes, this final rule is promulgated as of December 15, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2025-0157. 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 statute. 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> 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. Introduction</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Federal UIC Program and Primary Enforcement Authority (Primacy)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Class VI Wells Under the UIC Program</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Legal Authorities</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Texas' Application for UIC Class VI Primacy</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Public Participation Activities Conducted by Texas</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Summary of the EPA's Comprehensive Evaluation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Public Participation Activities Conducted by the EPA</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Public Comments and the EPA's Response</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. The EPA's Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Incorporation by Reference</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. The EPA's Oversight</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Executive Order 12866: Regulatory Planning and 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="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. Federal UIC Program and Primary Enforcement Authority (Primacy)</HD> The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), passed in 1974, protects public health by regulating the nation's public drinking water supply, including both surface and groundwater sources. Among other things, the SDWA requires the EPA to develop minimum requirements for effective State and Tribal UIC programs to prevent underground injection of fluids (such as water, wastewater, brines from oil and gas production, and carbon dioxide) from endangering underground sources of drinking water (USDWs). In general, USDWs are aquifers or parts of aquifers that supply a public water system or contain enough groundwater of sufficient quality to supply a public water system. See 40 CFR 144.3 (defining USDW). The EPA's UIC program regulates various aspects of injection. 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 permits and regulations. SDWA section 1421 directs the EPA to establish requirements that States, territories, and authorized Tribes must meet to be granted primary enforcement responsibility, or “primacy,” for a UIC program. 42 U.S.C. 300h. SDWA section 1422 provides that an applicant seeking primacy for a UIC program must demonstrate to the EPA that the applicant's proposed UIC program meets the applicable requirements promulgated by the EPA pursuant to section 1421 for protecting USDWs. 42 U.S.C. 300h through 300h-1. An applicant must demonstrate, among other things, jurisdiction over underground injection and that the applicant possesses the administrative, civil, and criminal enforcement authorities required by the EPA's implementing regulations. See 40 CFR part 145, subpart B. After the EPA approves a State for UIC program primacy, the State's UIC program may be revised with EPA approval. See 40 CFR 145.32. The EPA evaluates each primacy application in accordance with SDWA section 1422 and the EPA's implementing regulations to determine whether the applicant (in this instance, the State of Texas) has satisfactorily demonstrated that, after reasonable notice and public hearings, it has adopted and will implement a UIC program that meets the requirements of the SDWA regulations at 40 CFR parts 144, 145, and 146. The EPA conducts a similar comprehensive evaluation for proposed State UIC program revisions, including a program revision to add Class VI primacy where an applicant already has primacy to implement other classes under the UIC program. In this final rule, the EPA is approving Texas's program revision application to administer the UIC Class VI program in the State. EPA's approval is based on the Agency's determination that the application meets all applicable requirements for approval under SDWA section 1422 and the EPA's implementing regulations and that the State is capable of administering a UIC program in a manner consistent with the SDWA and applicable UIC regulations. The EPA will remain the permitting authority for all Class VI wells on Indian land within the State and will oversee Texas' administration of the State's UIC Class VI program pursuant to the SDWA. <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. The geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide in UIC Class VI wells is used as part of carbon capture and storage for carbon dioxide emissions from industrial sources. Class VI injection wells are regulated under a SDWA permitting framework that protects USDWs. The UIC Class VI program provides multiple safeguards that work together to protect USDWs. Permit applicants that want to inject carbon dioxide underground for the purpose of geologic sequestration must obtain a Class VI permit for each well by demonstrating to the UIC permitting authority that their proposed injection well and injection activities will meet all regulatory requirements, including the following technical, financial, and managerial requirements: • Site characterization to ensure the geology in the project area will contain the carbon dioxide within the zone where it is authorized to be injected. • Modeling to delineate the predicted area influenced by injection activities through the lifetime of the project. • 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 of injection pressure and flow, chemical analysis of the carbon dioxide stream that is being injected, monitoring the extent of the injected carbon dioxide plume and the surrounding area ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> ground water) to ensu ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 42k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━