Activists' Suit Seeks To Expand EPA's 'Aggregation' Policy For Air Permits

摘要

Activists have filed an air permit challenge with EPA's Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) aiming to force the agency to use a broad interpretation of its new policy for how to "aggregate" emissions from oil and gas facilities to assess pollution controls, saying EPA's approach is too narrow and could exclude emissions from many wells. An EAB ruling on the issue could be crucial because EPA has not issued any guidance on how to follow its 2009 aggregation policy, which overturned a Bush-era policy that critics said exempted too many oil and gas emissions from permitting. The EAB suit also challenges what appears to be the first permit issued under the new policy, and environmentalists say the region's approach to aggregation in the permit could make it difficult to cut well emissions.