EPA Agrees To Add Gas Processors To TRI But Rejects Broader Rulemaking

摘要

EPA has agreed to launch a rulemaking to add natural gas processing plants to the industry sectors required to report their chemical releases to the agency's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), responding in part to a push by environmentalists, but is rejecting advocates' efforts to expand the TRI rules to include oil and gas facilities, such as wells or compressors. The agency's announcement ends a decades-long question over whether to add oil and gas extraction as a category to TRI because of the agency's concern that many sources may not be considered "facilities" under the law governing TRI. The oil and gas extraction sector, known by the standard industrial classification (SIC) 13, includes crude oil and natural gas extraction, natural gas drilling liquids, exploration services, drilling wells and field services. The Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) led 16 other groups, including Natural Resources Defense Council and Clean Air Council in petitioning EPA in 2012 to add SIC 13 to the inventory, saying it was necessary because the industry releases an estimated 127,000 tons of hazardous air pollutants annually. But EPA is only partially granting the request, saying in an Oct. 22 response to the petition that while the oil and gas extraction sector might use TRI-listed chemicals in significant quantities, its activities are often spread out over a vast geographical region and require few employees to operate. The response is available on InsideEPA.com. Seepage 2 for details. (Doc. ID: 185996) "Consequently, taking these activities at the smallest individual unit (individual well, compressor station, booster station, etc.), neither the employee nor the chemical thresholds are likely to be met on a regular basis," EPA says. The agency estimates that as a result subjecting these activities to TRI would present a "limited picture" of the chemical releases from those activities.