Leaking Underground Storage Tank Program Implements the Recovery Act

In the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Congress appropriated $200 million from the Leaking Underground Storage Tank (LUST) Trust Fund to EPA for cleaning up leaks from underground storage tanks. Read about what else EPA is doing to implement the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The $200 million LUST Recovery Act money will pay for activities at shovel-ready sites to assess and clean up underground storage tank petroleum leaks. The money may be used either to:

Oversee assessing and cleaning up underground tank leaks, or
Directly pay for assessing and cleaning up leaks from federally regulated tanks where the responsible party is unknown, unwilling, unable, or the cleanup is an emergency response.

EPA allocated the $200 million LUST Recovery Act money as follows:

$190.7 million to all states and territories (except North Dakota and American Samoa who declined LUST Recovery Act money) in the form of assistance agreements to address shovel-ready sites within their jurisdictions
- List of states and territories receiving money, including amount for each
- Because the underground storage tank program is primarily implemented by states and territories, the vast majority of LUST Recovery Act money is going to state and territorial underground tank programs
- EPA used its existing LUST Trust Fund allocation formula to allocate the $190.7 million among the 54 states and territories receiving LUST Recovery Act money
- EPA's June 2009 LUST Recovery Act program guidance will assist EPA regional underground storage tank programs in negotiating and entering into assistance agreements with states and territories
  - These assistance agreements will include more detailed descriptions of state work plans
$6.3 million for existing EPA in-house contracts to do LUST eligible work (such as site assessment and cleanup activities) in Indian country
- This portion of money will go to assessing and cleaning up underground tank leaks in Indian country
- Because EPA implements the underground tanks program in Indian country, EPA regional underground storage tank programs will oversee assessing and cleaning up sites in Indian country
- Through a strategic planning process, EPA identified sites that were shovel ready in Indian country where LUST Recovery Act money could be put to work quickly
$3 million retained by EPA, shared by headquarters and regions, for management and oversight
- The Recovery Act provides for up to 1.5 percent of the $200 million to be retained by EPA to pay for salary and other expenses to manage, oversee, and report on appropriate spending of the $197 million going to states and territories and for cleanups in Indian country

The LUST Recovery Act money for cleaning up underground storage tank leaks is intended to stimulate jobs such as those necessary to perform site assessments and cleanup activities. If all LUST Recovery Act money is used directly for assessment and cleanup work, EPA estimates that thousands of jobs and 1,600 cleanups will result.

View the Leaking Underground Storage Tank Cleanup Program Recovery Plan submitted to OMB on May 15, 2009

on EPA's site in PDF format (14 pp, 205K, About PDF) or
on recovery.gov in HTML format

Leaking Underground Storage Tank Program Implements the Recovery Act

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