The US Environmental Protection Agency withdrew a request that oil and gas industry owners and operators provide information about equipment and emissions at existing operations. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said he ordered the Mar. 2 move after deciding that he wanted to reassess the need for the information collection request (ICR).
The agency also received a letter a day earlier from nine state attorneys general and the governors of Mississippi and Kentucky expressing concern with the pending ICRs for oil and gas facilities, EPA added.
"By taking this step, EPA is signaling that we take these concerns seriously and are committed to strengthening our partnership with the states," Pruitt said. "Today's action will reduce burdens on businesses while we take a closer look at the need for additional information from this industry."
The withdrawal is effective immediately, meaning owners and operators-including those who have received an extension to their due dates for providing the information-are no longer required to respond, EPA said.
It issued the final oil and gas industry ICR in November that the agency said reflected a number of changes based on comments about on two drafts, which the agency issued for public review and comment earlier in 2016 (OGJ Online, Nov. 14, 2016).
EPA sent letters to more than 15,000 oil and gas production facility owners and operators requiring information for two surveys. The operator survey sought basic information on the numbers and types of equipment at all onshore production facilities in the US.
The second asked for more detailed information on sources of methane emissions and emission control devices or practices in use by a representative sampling of facilities in several segments of the oil and gas industry.
A positive step
Responding to the announcement, Howard J. Feldman, API senior director for regulatory and scientific affairs, said EPA's announcement was a positive step in reducing uncertainties and burdens on the oil and gas industry.
"We now call on the Senate to repeal the [US] Bureau of Land Management's duplicative rule on methane, as the BLM does not have legal authority to regulate air quality," Feldman said. "EPA is the proper agency to determine the need to further regulate emissions."
The Independent Petroleum Association of America also welcomed EPA's action. "While this information-gathering effort should have been a real opportunity for the decision-makers at EPA to better understand the complexities of the US oil and gas industry, this ended up not being the case," IPAA Executive Vice-Pres. Lee O. Fuller noted.
"The exercise imposed significant costs on companies to produce additional paperwork and added unnecessary burdens on producers' technical teams to prepare and submit rushed comments under enormous time constraints," Fuller said.
The GPA Midstream Association and other groups are involved in litigation on the legality of the new source rule on oil and gas methane emissions. The Tulsa-based association believes that EPA should not take any action on existing methane emissions sources until that litigation, according to Matthew Hite, its vice-president of government affairs.
"We are thrilled and very appreciative of EPA withdrawing this costly and burdensome requirement from our members," he said.
