FUELS Act Quadruples Oil Spill Rule Threshold, Exempting Thousands of Facilities from Water Protection Mandates

The newly introduced Farmers Undertake Environmental Land Stewardship Act, or the FUELS Act, makes a significant change to how the federal government regulates oil storage near waterways. Specifically, Section 2 of this bill dramatically raises the bar for when facilities must comply with the Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) rule, which is the main federal regulation aimed at preventing oil spills into navigable waters.

The New Math for Oil Storage

Right now, if a facility has more than 20,000 gallons of aggregated aboveground oil storage capacity, they typically have to follow the full SPCC playbook—think detailed spill prevention plans, regular inspections, and specific training. The FUELS Act bumps that main threshold all the way up to 42,000 gallons. That is more than double the current limit. The idea is to reduce the administrative burden on facilities, especially agricultural ones, that store fuel and oil on site. For any farm or small industrial operation storing between 20,001 and 42,000 gallons of oil, this bill is a game-changer: they would no longer be required to maintain a full, federally mandated SPCC plan, saving them time and money on compliance costs and paperwork.

What This Means for Your Water Bill

While saving on paperwork sounds great, the SPCC rule exists for a reason: to protect the water we drink, swim in, and rely on for commerce. By raising the compliance threshold from 20,000 to 42,000 gallons, the FUELS Act essentially removes thousands of facilities from mandatory federal oversight regarding spill prevention. Imagine a mid-sized trucking depot or a large farm operation storing 35,000 gallons of diesel near a river. Under current rules, they must have a plan ready to go; under the FUELS Act, they don't. This shift transfers the responsibility for preventing a major spill from a federal mandate to voluntary best practices, which is a major risk for communities relying on clean water downstream. When a spill happens, the cleanup costs are astronomical and often borne by the public, not the facility.

The Fine Print on Containment

Interestingly, the bill does make a small, seemingly contradictory tweak to the secondary containment requirements for facilities that do still fall under the rule. For certain storage setups, the required capacity for secondary containment (like the berm or wall around a tank) is increased slightly—for example, from 1,000 gallons to 1,320 gallons, and from 2,500 gallons to 3,000 gallons. So, while the bill makes it much harder to trigger the overall SPCC rule, those who remain regulated must build slightly bigger safety nets. However, this minor increase in containment capacity does little to offset the fact that a much larger number of facilities will now have no federal requirement for a spill prevention plan at all, particularly those in the 20,001 to 42,000-gallon bracket.