Changes proposed for oil-spill dispersant regs

摘要

The use of chemical products to disperse the nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil resulting from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill prompted the EPA to reconsider regulations affecting how such products receive and maintain federal approval. The Agency has now stepped forward with a proposal to revise many of the fundamental requirements for the use of dispersants and other chemical and biological agents used in response to oil spills in U.S. waters. According to the EPA, for a 3-month period following the Deepwater Horizon blowout, approximately 1 million gallons of dispersants were deployed on surface slicks over thousands of square miles of the Gulf, and approximately three-quarters of a million gallons of dispersants were, for the first time, injected directly into the oil gushing from the well riser 1 mile below the sea surface.