It's Saturday morning now...
...but here is the weekly Bush Administration Friday afternoon atrocity:
New clean water regulations requiring small construction sites to develop plans for storm water will not apply to the oil and gas industries, officials of the Environmental Protection Agency said today.
The new rules, which take effect on Monday, will require construction sites bigger than one acre to have plans to handle storm water, which can carry chemical and metal runoff from the disturbed soil. Existing rules already require such plans for sites larger than five acres
The agency says it is giving the oil and gas industries a two-year exemption from the requirement at the smaller sites while it conducts further study. Critics in national environmental groups and in Congress say the oil and gas industries are taking advantage of close ties to the administration to lay political groundwork for broader exemptions to the Clean Water Act.
John Millett, an environmental agency spokesman, said the agency had received conflicting information about the environmental impact of oil and gas construction sites.
"It's different because of its short time frame compared to other construction," Mr. Millet said, adding that the agency did not have enough data to properly understand how the rule would affect the oil and gas industries. "All that information right now is residential and commercial construction."
"Oil and gas differs sufficiently enough to warrant further evaluation," he said.
Since 1990, construction sites, including oil and gas facilities, that are larger than five acres or in more densely populated areas have been required to obtain permits. Oil construction sites larger than five acres often dealt with the regulation by building ponds to collect the storm water and soil runoff.
Senator James M. Jeffords, independent of Vermont, the ranking minority member of the Environmental and Public Works Committee, criticized the exemption.
"While small communities and small construction projects in every other sector of the economy must comply with strong storm water standards," Mr. Jeffords said, "the Bush administration is giving a free ride to the oil and gas industry."
These guys don't even bother to pretend anymore....
Thanks Ralph.....