EPA, Industry Supporters, and Colorado Regulator Make Affirmative Case for Newly Proposed Methane Regulations Covering Oil and Gas Operations; Stress Importance of 'Voluntary' Efforts to Fend Off Still More Regulations

摘要

On 9/29/15 in Washington D.C., an array of speakers led by Joseph Goffman, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator and senior counsel, and Martha Rudolph, an environmental programs director with the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment, participated in panel discussions laying out the case for federal and state regulatory initiatives aimed at reducing the oil and gas industry’s methane and associated volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions - notwithstanding a considerable amount of voluntary mitigation by the industry. New regulations proposed on 8/18/15, which would extend the reach of an existing set of 2012-vintage New Source Performance Standards (NSPS), would apply to the permitting of new or modified emissions sources, in addition to clarifying policies and practices in various other aspects of the federal/state regulatory partnership.