HB 162 is a bill introduced on May 13 and is sponsored by Rep. Mulrooney, Sen. DeLuca and Sen. Sorenson. The text of the bill is the following (link here for all bills of the 145th General Assembly):
AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 7 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO VESSEL TO VESSEL PETROLEUM TRANSFERS.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE:
Section 1. Amend § 6095, Title 7 of the Delaware Code by renumbering the current subsection “(6)” to “(7)” and inserting a new subsection (6) to read as follows:
“(6) For vessel to vessel petroleum transfers on the waters of the Delaware River and Bay, obtaining a Clean Air Act Title V permit allows an entity to conduct vessel to vessel petroleum transfers, notwithstanding any other provision of Title 7; or”
SYNOPSIS
This act makes a technical change requiring entities conducting vessel to vessel petroleum transfers in the waters of the Delaware River and Bay to obtain a Clean Air Act Title V permit.
It looks and sounds pretty simple, right? Here’s what Green Delaware has to say about the bill:
Lots of bills get introduced in the Delaware General Assembly–on the order of one thousand per session. Some are good, some are bad, some are incomprehensible except to the special interests trying to pull something.
Rarely have I seen a bill as openly dishonest as House Bill 162, “AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 7 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO VESSEL TO VESSEL PETROLEUM TRANSFERS.”
This bill is about “lightering,” meaning partial unloading of oil tankers into smaller vessels so they ride higher in the water and can go farther up river. Lightering causes considerable air pollution and other environmental concerns. According to the DNREC, “Lightering operations represented the largest stationary VOC emission source in Delaware.” There’s been a good bit of litigation about it over the years.
The Synopsis of this bill states: “This act makes a technical change requiring entities conducting vessel to vessel petroleum transfers in the waters of the Delaware River and Bay to obtain a Clean Air Act Title V permit.”
That sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?
But guess what? Lightering already requires a Title V permit.
Now: look at what the body of the bill actually says:
“(6) For vessel to vessel petroleum transfers on the waters of the Delaware River and Bay, obtaining a Clean Air Act Title V permit allows an entity to conduct vessel to vessel petroleum transfers, notwithstanding any other provision of Title 7; or”
Guess what? Title 7 is the main body of Delaware’s environmental laws, including the Coastal Zone Act.
So the real effect of this bill would be to exempt lightering from the Coastal Zone Act, under which lightering is regulated as a “bulk transfer” facility. Other laws and regulations might also be effected.
[Editing notes: the text has been cleaned up slightly to fix the links, and to correct the name of the bill. Also, this particular information came from an email and I couldn’t find this particular alert at the Green Delaware website. If someone from Green Delaware sends a link, I’ll include it in the post.]
Apparently this bill is a hot topic in the local civic leagues. So, I open it up to our smart commenters and contributors – what is the purpose of this bill? Is it trying to get around Delaware environmental regulations, and if so, for what purpose? The floor is yours.