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Associations Band Together to Lobby for Service Station
Dealers' Exemption
On July 17, 2003, I went to Washington as executive director
of NESSARA and connected with 5 other associations (National Automobile
Dealers Association (NADA), Automotive Oil Exchange Association (AOCA),
Service Station Dealers of America and Allied Trades (SSDA-AT), Tire Association
(CIA), Automotive Service Association (ASA), to lobby legislators on the
Superfund issue, specifically the Service Station Dealers Exemption (SSDE).
Seven meetings had been scheduled. We met with the staffs of Senator Inhofe,
Oklahoma, Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator
Ron Wyden, Oregon, Senator Barbara Boxer, California, Senator John Cornyn,
Texas, Senator Thomas Carper, Delaware, Senator James Jeffords, Vermont
and Senator Lincoln Chafee, Rhode Island.
Our position is that no matter how one reads the ambiguous language in
the effective date clause of the SSDE, the exemption should have applied
from 1986 forward and not from 1993 as claimed by the EPA. At the time
the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorizing Act (SARA) were passed, EPA
was already under statutory mandate to promulgate the used oil management
standards during 1986. If EPA has no responsibility to comply with its
statutory mandates, then Congress would have created an exemption that
could have been avoided indefinitely by an agency.
The staffers were very sympathetic to our position. The senators are
upset with the EPA for in essence not following their directives and dragging
their feet in publishing the regulations. It is safe, I believe, to say
that it is easier to get after the EPA for what is already on the books
than to try to get an amendment or a new bill filed to change the superfund
law. The consensus is that it is easier to get support for what is existing
than to get support for a bill that would gather a lot of opposition from
the environmentalists, etc.
The downside of this is that it will not cover many of our members who
according to the EPA numbers had oil taken to Beede prior to 1986. I discussed
this issue with some of our members. The feeling is that "better
latch on to what we can get now and than we will address the rest later".
Any victory at this time will be a blessing and then we can strategize
as to how we will address the remaining issues.
Our hope was that the bill would make the floor in July but obviously
this has not happened. What seems a common sense issue to those in the
industry is not as clear to those who are not.
Speaking for myself, I felt when leaving Washington that we were on to
something and that some type of action would be forthcoming. Now I realize
that there is a lot more work to be done. I was hoping that we could give
up on drastic measures such as picketing, gathering petitions, etc. but
this may not be possible.
I was pleased to be able to join other associations in this lobbying
effort. Having six associations embracing a common cause and walking into
a senator's office was very impressive to me if not to the staffers. It
draws attention to the magnitude of this problem. It takes it out of the
New England area and shows it for what it is a national one and one that
needs to be addressed sooner than later.
Joining forces is the only way that we can draw attention and perhaps
have the EPA come to their senses. Claiming to enforce the law cannot
be an excuse for common sense and the prevalent principle in law of how
a reasonable person would act in a given situation. Certainly one cannot
do more than follow the existing laws which is what the PRPs did.
Time and again during these meetings we stressed that the government cannot
be looking to small businesses, law abiding citizens, to clean up these
sites when we did nothing wrong. At the moment our pleas seem to be falling
on deaf ears.
The struggle goes on and we will not give up.
Executive Director
Dick Poulin
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