New standards intended to reduce air emissions from the crude oil and natural gas industries are scheduled to be published this week. 

The EPA released the proposed rule in November 2021, supplemented it in December 2022 and announced the final rule in December 2023.  

The prepared text was posted Feb. 23. It will become effective 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, which is scheduled March 8. 

The standards cover new and existing facilities for production, processing, transport and storage of natural gas and crude petroleum. The sector is the largest U.S. industrial emitter of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas blamed for one-third of the global warming resulting from human activity. 

EPA in December framed the new standards as a sweeping series of changes that would apply to hundreds of thousands of sources nationwide and prevent 58 million tons of methane emissions from 2024 to 2038, delivering health and economic benefits worth billions of dollars in the process. 

In the same time frame, EPA estimates reductions of 16 million tons of volatile organic compounds and 590,000 tons of various other toxic air pollutants that affect human health. It anticipates the prevention of the release of 400 billion cubic feet of fuel per year. 

“Standards of Performance for New, Reconstructed and Modified Sources and Emissions Guidelines for Existing Sources: Oil and Natural Gas Sector Climate Review” (Document No. 2024-00366) takes several approaches to meeting these goals: It encourages use of advanced technology for detecting methane, encourages continued innovation, sets up a program to identify the “super emitters” blamed for about half of the methane emissions from the oil and gas sector, bars flaring at new oil wells, sets zero-emissions standards for process controllers and pumps outside Alaska, and gives existing emitters three years to submit compliance plans. 

The 1,356-page unpublished version of the final rule lists four main components in its summary: 

• • finalizing revisions to the new source performance standards regulating greenhouse gases and volatile organic compounds emissions for the crude oil and natural gas source category pursuant to the Clean Air Act. 
  • finalizing emission guidelines for states to follow in developing, submitting and implementing state plans to establish performance standards to limit GHG emissions from existing sources in crude oil and natural gas sectors. 
  • finalizing several related actions stemming from the joint resolution of Congress on June 30, 2021, that disapproved EPA’s final 2020 rule for these emissions standards. 
  • finalizing a protocol under the general provisions for optical gas imaging. 

EPA said it received nearly a million comments on the November 2021 proposal and December 2022 supplement, ranging from support for the measures to a desire that they be further strengthened, to practical and cost concerns, to technical suggestions. 

After the rule was finalized in December 2023, it was hailed by groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund (“a major step forward in the fight against climate change”) and Clean Air Task Force (“worth the wait … worthy of celebration”). 

Others were not so happy. 

“The Biden administration has piled on another massive regulatory burden designed to encumber and even shut down American energy production,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), the nation’s No. 3 oil-producing state. 

The American Exploration & Production Council said: “While we appreciate EPA’s commitment to bringing all stakeholders to the table and see some improvement within the rule, other provisions remain flawed and risk undercutting U.S. production in the near and long-term.”