The CLEANER Act of 2025 mandates the EPA to review and regulate oil, gas, and geothermal production wastes under the Solid Waste Disposal Act, potentially classifying them as hazardous waste or establishing stricter standards for non-hazardous disposal.
Kathy Castor
Representative
FL-14
The CLEANER Act of 2025 mandates the Administrator to review and regulate wastes generated from oil, gas, and geothermal energy production under the Solid Waste Disposal Act. This includes determining if these wastes qualify as hazardous and establishing corresponding regulations if they do. For non-hazardous wastes from these industries, the Act requires the revision of criteria for disposal facilities to ensure protection of human health and the environment, including requirements for groundwater monitoring.
New CLEANER Act Forces EPA to Review Oil, Gas Waste as Hazardous—But Grants Flexibility on Safety Rules
The “Closing Loopholes and Ending Arbitrary and Needless Evasion of Regulations Act of 2025,” or the CLEANER Act, is taking aim at a major regulatory gap: how we handle the waste generated from drilling for crude oil, natural gas, and geothermal energy. Right now, much of this material—like drilling fluids and produced water—is exempt from the toughest federal hazardous waste rules. This bill mandates the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to finally review these wastes and potentially classify them as hazardous, kicking off a major shift in how the energy sector operates.
The Cleanup Mandate: Subtitle C Review
This bill gives the EPA Administrator one year to figure out if these oil, gas, and geothermal wastes meet the criteria to be officially listed as hazardous waste under Subtitle C of the Solid Waste Disposal Act. If they do, the EPA must list them and create new regulations under sections 3002, 3003, and 3004. This is the big deal: Subtitle C is the heavy-hitter regulation for toxic waste, requiring strict monitoring, permitting, and cleanup standards. For the energy industry, this could mean significantly higher compliance costs and a complete overhaul of waste management practices, affecting everything from storage to disposal.
The Regulatory Wildcard: Flexibility and Risk
Here’s where things get interesting, and potentially tricky. The bill specifically allows the EPA Administrator to change the standard requirements of those Subtitle C hazardous waste rules for these specific energy wastes. The catch is that these modified rules must still protect human health and the environment. This is a massive piece of regulatory flexibility. On the one hand, it acknowledges that drilling waste might be unique and not fit the standard hazardous waste box perfectly. On the other hand, it introduces a Vague Authority concern: who decides what “still protects” human health? If the EPA uses this flexibility to set standards that are too low to be effective, the public could end up bearing the cost of future cleanup, even if the waste is technically listed as “hazardous.”
Raising the Bar for “Non-Hazardous” Waste
What about the wastes that don’t get listed as hazardous? The bill covers that too. For any oil and gas waste that remains non-hazardous, the EPA must update the criteria for the facilities that dispose of them (Subtitle D). These revisions must include several key requirements that are currently missing in many places: groundwater monitoring to detect contamination, criteria for facility location, and provisions for corrective action and financial assurance.
For communities living near disposal sites, this is a clear win. Financial assurance means the company has to set aside money to pay for cleanup before a problem occurs, rather than leaving taxpayers on the hook. However, the bill also states that these revised criteria can consider what is “practically achievable.” This phrase could be used to justify less stringent standards if the industry argues that true protection is too expensive, creating a tension between environmental safety and economic feasibility.