Lawmakers including Paulsboro's Burzichelli seek to roll back oil-refinery rules

In 2009 New Jersey began requiring new equipment on oil-storage tanks at the refinery in Paulsboro and facilities like it in a move to curb emissions that can cause respiratory illness.

Now Paulsboro Mayor John Burzichelli, also a state assemblyman, is seeking to roll back the regulation at the oil industry's urging.

An Assembly regulatory panel chaired by Burzichelli on Thursday approved a resolution he sponsored that would give the state 30 days to amend or withdraw the rule, which is unique among East Coast states, New Jersey environmental officials say. The oil industry has argued it is too expensive and provides little environmental benefit.

The regulation is part of a broader plan by New Jersey, among the states with the worst air quality, to reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds, or VOC. The compounds contribute to the hazardous formation of ground-level ozone, a main component of smog.

The state is trying to reduce those emissions to meet a 1997 federal ozone standard, and says achieving the goal would eliminate about 40,000 asthma attacks a year and substantially reduce hospital visits for people with respiratory diseases.

Much of the 200,000 tons of volatile organic compounds emitted annually in the state comes from motor vehicles, but the Department of Environmental Protection says the major "stationary source" is oil tanks that leak vapors. The agency called for certain external floating-roof tanks to be equipped with domes projected to reduce VOC emissions by 130 tons a year.

Critics say the regulation, which affects about 70 tanks, would reduce the state's overall emissions of those compounds less than 1 percent. And oil companies have complained that the $58 million price of complying with the measure is too steep, though regulators at their request extended the compliance deadline to a decade.

"Typically when we do a rule, it's about three years, so this is an extraordinarily long amount of time," Bill O'Sullivan, an air-quality director at the DEP, told lawmakers Thursday as he defended the rule.

New Jersey based the regulation on rules adopted in parts of California and Texas that also exceed air-quality standards.

Burzichelli's resolution says the DEP regulation is inconsistent with the intent of a 1990s New Jersey law dictating how the state would comply with the federal Clean Air Act. It states the Legislature did not intend to require "a very specific remedy that may not be the best or only method" of reducing emissions.

And the Legislature only intended to have those rules limited to federally mandated air-pollution-control measures, which do not require installation of the domes, the resolution said.

New Jersey Sierra Club president Jeff Tittel accused Burzichelli of siding with the oil industry at the expense of residents in his town, describing emissions from the refinery as far more harmful than those from more common sources such as cars.

Bill Wolfe, an environmental advocate and former DEP employee, called the oil-tank provision "a pure public health-protection measure" and said New Jersey had to take extraordinary measures to start meeting air-quality standards.

He said that the industry previously would not have been bold enough to argue against it but that Gov. Christie had created a regulatory climate inviting such challenges.

One of Christie's first acts in office last year was issuing an executive order saying that state agencies shall not adopt rules that exceed federal requirements, with limited exceptions.

He also commissioned a group to identify regulations that impede economic development for reasons that include exceeding federal standards "without well-documented cause," placing the state at a competitive disadvantage in attracting jobs.

The Democratic-controlled Legislature has largely agreed with his ideas about easing regulations - and Burzichelli in particular.

Burzichelli, a Democrat, sponsored a group of "Red Tape" bills that gained final legislative approval this month and would speed up the environmental-permitting process, among other things. He also is the sponsor of a bill that seeks to discourage agencies from adopting rules that exceed federal standards.

Burzichelli, who introduced the oil-tank resolution in June, said that refineries were important to New Jersey's economy and that they would leave if the state burdened them with excessive regulation.

"All it does is put industry and jobs and the economy in peril," he said, acknowledging that Sunoco Inc.'s decision to shut a refinery in Gloucester County and lay off 400 employees in 2009 was a factor in his position.

Burzichelli said installing domes on the tanks in Paulsboro would have a negligible effect, though he acknowledged: "I don't know how those gases actually work."

"Make no mistake about it: We know we live next to a refinery, and it is what it is. . . . We want them to get better and do better; we want them compliant and we want them in business."

Valero Energy Corp., which owned the 907-acre refinery in Paulsboro, had been among those opposing the DEP's new rule. The company made about $80,000 in campaign contributions to lawmakers in both major parties over the last five years, including Burzichelli.

Though Valero sold the refinery last month to PBF Energy Partners L.P., senior environmental engineer Richard Roat showed up at the hearing to voice support for the resolution.

And Raymond Wuertz of ConocoPhillips, which owns Bayway Refinery in Linden, told lawmakers that installing domes on oil tanks would not achieve the emissions reductions New Jersey is seeking.

"We shouldn't be doing these things," Wuertz said.

ConocoPhillips has made about $400,000 in campaign donations to Democratic and Republican lawmakers, including Burzichelli, in the last five years.

"I'm grateful for people that are kind enough to consider supporting me . . . that's called fund-raising," Burzichelli said.

The oil industry is expected to meet further with the DEP to try to resolve the matter.

"Regulations in New Jersey, with all good intentions, have in many cases become so burdensome that we have driven industry out of this state," Burzichelli said. "This Legislature has said, 'We are going to reverse that.' "