So Much For The President's Goal of Less Regulatory Interference -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here. The link will likely be broken soon because it is to a regional newspaper.

A proposed refinery on the reservation is in limbo because the EPA is asking for design plans.

Promoters feel they have provided the EPA all that is required by law. They say design plans are not required by law.

Apparently the EPA doesn't even have the necessary regulations in place to provide guidelines for analysis to allow the permitting process to go forward.

A tribal spokesman said said the EPA can't grant the necessary permits because they don't have them. He said when Richard Nixon was president in the 1960s, the Clean Air Act was passed and the EPA has had 40 years to work on regulations but hasn't done it.

Further, the spokesman said if the refinery was built off the reservation they could have a permit from the state of North Dakota in about six months. But since the refinery would be built on the reservation, which is federal land, they need the federal permit.

Anybody with common sense would allow the state to provide the analysis, documentation and whatever else is needed and then make a recommendation to the EPA, but common sense is something in short supply in federal bureaucracies.
So much for the president's goal to cut back on regulatory delays. Sort of like the "permitorium" in the Gulf.

The good news is that the refinery is trivial in the big scheme of things; it is designed to process 15,000 bopd. The sad thing is that native Americans are caught, once again, in the bureaucratic morass. Let's hope our new senator is as successful as the previous senator was in opening the reservation to energy development.