EPA Emissions Rule Shows Improvements

It will take some time to fully digest the EPA’s new rule governing emissions from oil and natural gas production, including hydraulic fracturing, but it’s clear the agency heard industry’s concerns and worked to improve the regulation from its preliminary version.

Significantly, companies will have until 2015 to comply with some of the requirements of the new rule. Industry had maintained more time was needed to develop the equipment needed for compliance and to train workers to use it. Howard Feldman, API’s director of regulatory and scientific affairs on the final rule:

“The industry has led efforts to reduce emissions by developing new technologies that were adopted in the rule.  EPA has made some improvements in the rules that allow our companies to continue reducing emissions while producing the oil and natural gas our country needs. This is a large and complicated rulemaking for an industry so critical to the economy, and we need to thoroughly review the final rule to fully understand its impacts.”

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