The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Air Quality (DAQ) recently extended the public comment period for the draft Class II General Permit G70-A for the Prevention and Control of Air Pollution in regard to the Construction, Modification, Relocation, Administrative Update and Operation of Natural Gas Production Facilities Located at the Well Site. All written comments or requests for a public meeting must now be received by the DAQ before 5:00pm on May 17, 2013. (The original deadline was April 29, 2013, as discussed in a prior blog post.)
This week the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) of the U.S. Department of Energy announced that it has entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to research air quality and emissions at natural gas drilling sites. In its press release, NETL explained that, “The research will enable the development of modeling tools to predict and quantify potential risks associated with shale gas reserves that require hydraulic fracturing and assist researchers in analyzing greenhouse gas lifecycle emissions.” According to the NIOSH press release, the research will also be used address worker health and safety concerns in the oil and gas industry.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed revisions (described in an earlier post) to certain new source performance standards affecting the oil and natural gas sector were published today in the Federal Register, marking the beginning of the public comment period. Comments are due on May 13, 2013.
On April 2, 2013, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) withdrew a direct final rule it issued in February 2013 that required oil and natural gas companies to submit by June 30th of each year a request to use alternative calculation methods for reporting greenhouse gas emissions. EPA received adverse comments on the direct final rule, and will instead address this issue through the proposed rulemaking process.
On March 28, 2013, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a pre-publication version of proposed amendments to the Oil and Natural Gas Sector New Source Performance Standards (NSPS). EPA published the final oil and gas NSPS in August 2012, and is now proposing changes to the rule in response to petitions filed by industry and environmental groups. The proposed amendments would affect a variety of storage tanks associated with the oil and natural gas production process.