Environmentalists Cite Strict EPA Plan In Push For Expanded Drilling NSPS

摘要

Environmentalists are urging Senate energy panel Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) to push EPA to expand its drilling new source performance standards (NSPS) to include first-time emission control requirements for hydraulic fracturing from oil wells, citing an EPA air plan for North Dakota that imposes stricter limits than the NSPS. The EPA federal implementation plan (FIP) - which is specific to the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota's Bakken Shale - is designed to address what the agency says are "regulatory gaps" in the NSPS, and imposes controls for flaring, or the burning off of natural gas before a well is linked to a pipeline, among other measures. Environmental groups in a June 5 letter to Wyden cite the FIP as a model for revising the drilling NSPS. In the FIP, EPA required drilling well operators to flare at an efficiency of at least 90 percent for the first 90 days of production, and at least 98 percent efficiency thereafter in order to reduce air pollution.