EXCERPT:
"A package of air quality standards proposed today by U.S. EPA would require the oil and gas industry to cut its emissions to protect people from smog, cancer-causing chemicals and climate change -- and would also save drillers millions of dollars per year, the agency said."
COMMENT:
Now that there is acknowledgement that the oil and gas industry's air pollution causes cancer, the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing some air quality standards. Will the standards take into account multiple wells or will the standards relate to individual wells as is currently the case? Whatever happened to the "Protection" rather than remediation on the part of the EPA?
Gabriel Nelson
July 28, 2011
A package of air quality standards proposed today by U.S. EPA would require the oil and gas industry to cut its emissions to protect people from smog, cancer-causing chemicals and climate change -- and would also save drillers millions of dollars per year, the agency said.
The four rules, which would need to be finalized by the end of February 2012 under a settlement with environmentalists, include new limits on both volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and toxic emissions. EPA says the standards would cut smog-forming VOCs across the industry by 25 percent and toxics by about 30 percent, and as a side benefit, would cut methane -- a potent greenhouse gas -- by about 26 percent.
At a time when the Obama administration is taking fire from business groups that claim its environmental rules are too costly, the new standards were touted as saving money for the oil industry by forcing companies to do more to keep natural gas from escaping into the air.
The rules would cost businesses an estimated $754 million in 2015, but the natural gas and condensate that would be captured by new pollution controls could be sold for $783 million, the agency's analysis shows....continued.....
"A package of air quality standards proposed today by U.S. EPA would require the oil and gas industry to cut its emissions to protect people from smog, cancer-causing chemicals and climate change -- and would also save drillers millions of dollars per year, the agency said."
COMMENT:
Now that there is acknowledgement that the oil and gas industry's air pollution causes cancer, the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing some air quality standards. Will the standards take into account multiple wells or will the standards relate to individual wells as is currently the case? Whatever happened to the "Protection" rather than remediation on the part of the EPA?
Gabriel Nelson
July 28, 2011
A package of air quality standards proposed today by U.S. EPA would require the oil and gas industry to cut its emissions to protect people from smog, cancer-causing chemicals and climate change -- and would also save drillers millions of dollars per year, the agency said.
The four rules, which would need to be finalized by the end of February 2012 under a settlement with environmentalists, include new limits on both volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and toxic emissions. EPA says the standards would cut smog-forming VOCs across the industry by 25 percent and toxics by about 30 percent, and as a side benefit, would cut methane -- a potent greenhouse gas -- by about 26 percent.
At a time when the Obama administration is taking fire from business groups that claim its environmental rules are too costly, the new standards were touted as saving money for the oil industry by forcing companies to do more to keep natural gas from escaping into the air.
The rules would cost businesses an estimated $754 million in 2015, but the natural gas and condensate that would be captured by new pollution controls could be sold for $783 million, the agency's analysis shows....continued.....
