Bill > S442

This bill establishes the Department of Fire Services Oil Spill Mitigation Trust Fund, a dedicated fund to manage money for responding to and mitigating oil spills. This fund will be financed through appropriations, money recovered from oil spill incidents under Chapter 21K of the General Laws, fees imposed for oil spill response and prevention, and fines. The state fire marshal will oversee this fund as trustee, and money from it can be used without prior legislative approval for emergency oil spill response and to reimburse local fire departments, cities, and towns for related costs. The bill also defines "oil spill emergency response" to include mitigation efforts for oil spills from land-based delivery vehicles to homes and businesses, and it directs that money collected for such responses be deposited into this new trust fund, while other money collected under Chapter 21K will go to a separate Hazardous Materials Emergency Mitigation Response Recovery Trust Fund. Additionally, a fee of up to 5 cents per barrel of petroleum product delivered to residential or commercial properties will be imposed, with all collected fees going directly into the new Oil Spill Mitigation Trust Fund.