EPA-UNDERGROUND STORAGE TANKS
HB1640 amends Section 57.7 of the Illinois Environmental Protection Act, which governs leaking underground storage tanks. The bill lays out the process for site investigation and corrective action when a release from an underground storage tank occurs, including required plans, budgets, completion reports, and timelines for Agency review and approval. It also specifies what information must be included in those submissions, such as sampling results, remediation objectives, selected remedies, monitoring and maintenance plans, and schedules for completion.
The bill further defines how remediation objectives are set and how indicator contaminants are identified for different tank contents, including gasoline, middle distillates, heavy ends, and used oil. It clarifies that groundwater objectives refer to Class I groundwater standards or objectives, and it allows owners or operators to begin investigation or cleanup before formal plan approval, subject to later Agency review and possible appeal. All investigations, plans, and reports must be prepared under the supervision of a licensed professional engineer.
HB1640 would affect the Illinois Environmental Protection Act by updating the procedural and substantive requirements for cleanup of leaking underground storage tank sites. It strengthens and clarifies Agency oversight of site investigation and corrective action plans, including approval standards, reporting deadlines, cost reasonableness review, and the conditions for reimbursement from the Underground Storage Tank Fund. The bill also incorporates detailed bidding and documentation requirements for Fund-paid corrective action work, and it ties certain cleanup decisions to tiered remediation objectives, institutional controls, and project labor agreement determinations.
The available voting history suggests strong support for the bill: it passed Third Reading in the House on April 10, 2025 by a vote of 112-0. No committee transcripts were provided, so there is no recorded floor or committee debate in the supplied materials. Overall, the bill appears to have been noncontroversial and broadly accepted by members voting on it.
No specific points of contention are documented in the provided transcripts, but the bill’s most likely areas of policy sensitivity are the cleanup standards, the Agency’s authority to approve or reject plans and budgets, and the procurement rules for Fund-paid remediation work. The detailed bidding requirements, the use of industrial/commercial remediation objectives unless residential use is shown, and the potential requirement for project labor agreements could be areas where stakeholders such as tank owners, contractors, labor interests, or environmental regulators might have differing views. However, the recorded vote indicates no opposition at the House Third Reading stage.