Nine petitions challenging EPA’s final New Source Performance Standards for the oil and natural gas sector have been filed with the D.C. Circuit (the rule was published in the Federal Register in early June). EPA’s rule limits certain greenhouse gas, including methane, and volatile organic compound emissions from oil and natural gas operations, such as hydraulically fractured oil wells. EPA stated that it expects the final rule to reduce 510,000 short tons of methane in 2025, or the equivalent of eleven million metric tons of CO2.
States (Alabama, Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Texas, Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality) and industry groups have challenged the rule, with North Dakota being the first to file and thus the named petitioner in the consolidated cases. Other states—California, Connecticut, Illinois, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Massachusetts—and the City of Chicago have filed a motion to intervene in support of EPA, as have several environmental groups. EPA has filed an unopposed motion to extend certain deadlines, which would push the next big steps in this proceeding, including the submission of dispositive motions, into October.
Eight States Raise Concerns Over EPA’s Proposed Regional Haze Amendments
On April 25, 2016, EPA proposed revisions to its “Regional Haze Rule.” Promulgated under the Clean Air Act, this Rule requires states to submit plans to protect visibility at certain federal lands, such as national parks, and to update them periodically. EPA asserts that the revisions will “streamline, strengthen, and clarify” portions of the Rule and will apply to the next set of Regional Haze plans (originally due in 2018 but now proposed to be due in 2021).
Last week, the Attorneys General of Arkansas, Alabama, Colorado, Kansas, Michigan, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Carolina jointly filed comments on EPA’s proposed amendments. The eight Attorneys General expressed concern that the proposed revisions afford too much authority to Federal Land Managers, and would deprive states of their traditional responsibility for deciding when visibility problems are “reasonably attributable” to a specific source or set of sources. They argue that EPA’s proposed revisions would move away from the use of measurable and objective criteria for assessing visibility impairment and for determining the least and most impaired days.
The Attorneys General also focused on EPA’s proposed push back of the deadline for the submission of State Implementation Plans for the second planning period. EPA says that the delay will allow states to coordinate their Regional Haze Rule planning with their planning for other regulations, such as MATS and the Clean Power Plan. But the eight Attorneys General countered that the coordinated deadlines improperly pressure states to comply regulatory programs that are subject to ongoing legal challenges.
EPA received over three hundred comments on the proposed revisions to the Regional Haze Rule (the public comment period is now closed). The commenters included environmental officials from several other states, as well as industry and environmental groups, a number of which supported at least some aspects of EPA’s proposed revisions.