To Representative Morgan Griffith, a freshman Republican from Virginia, nothing illustrates the Environmental Protection Agency’s overreach more clearly than a new rule applying the same regulations that govern spilled oil to milk spilled on dairy farms.

“It appears spilt milk is just as threatening as an oil spill,” Mr. Griffith wrote in a recent newsletter to his constituents.

Such rules would force dairy farmers to build containment facilities in case of a spill and develop emergency plans, he continued, “jacking up the cost of milk and butter.”

Spilled milk also surfaced at a March 3 hearing, when Representative Jeff Flake of Arizona grilled Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. chief, over the alleged regulation. “How can the E.P.A. promulgate new rules like this?” Mr. Flake demanded. “What’s next — sippy cups in the House cafeteria?”

In the midst of a heated debate over the E.P.A.’s authority to regulate heat-trapping emissions like carbon dioxide, the charge makes for great political theater. But according to the agency, it is pure fiction.



In testimony before Congress on Thursday, Ms. Jackson declared that the new rule cited by Republicans would, in fact, exempt dairy containers from the regulations that govern oil facilities — rules that have been on the books for nearly 40 years.

“It was our work with the dairy industry that prompted E.P.A. to develop an exemption and make sure the standards of the law are met in a common-sense way,” she said. “All of E.P.A.’s actions have been to exempt these containers. And we expect this to become final very shortly.”

Ms. Jackson’s account has been echoed by dairy industry representatives.

In her testimony, Ms. Jackson called the rumored milk regulations one of several “fictions” being spread by Republicans and special interest groups about proposed federal environmental regulations.

“We all have a responsibility to ensure that the American people have facts and the truth in front of them, particularly when fictions are pushed by special interests with an investment in the outcome,” she said.

Politifact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking organization run by The St. Petersburg Times, also examined the Republican claims on the spilled milk regulations and rated them false.

The furor over the regulations appear to have begun with an unsigned editorial by The Wall Street Journal on Jan. 29.

“The E.P.A. thinks the next blowout may happen in rural Vermont or Wisconsin,” the article states. “Other dangerous pollution risks that somehow haven’t made it onto the E.P.A. docket include leaks from maple sugar taps and the vapors at Badger State breweries.”

Ms. Jackson said she had written a letter to the editor explaining that the agency had decided to exempt the dairy industry from the oil spill rules several months before, but the newspaper declined to publish it.