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The EPA’s use of its Clean Air Act (CAA) authority to grant waivers from Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) obligations to small refineries has for years been a top issue of contention associated with the RFS. The Agency’s use of the waiver has continued to spark negative reactions from renewable fuel advocates following the Agency’s issuance […]
In the waning days of the Obama administration, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) promulgated revisions to regulations at 43 CFR Subpart Section 3179, which are intended to reduce the waste of oil and natural gas (O&G) from venting, flaring, and leaks during O&G production on onshore federal and Indian leases. The main objective of […]
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recently published a fact sheet on hazards faced by workers in the oil and gas (O&G) extraction sector. One such hazard is exposure to diesel exhaust (DE), which contains diesel particulate matter (DPM).
TransCanada’s plans to construct the Keystone XL Pipeline and the U.S. Department of State’s (DOS) approval of those plans ran into another wall when a U.S. District Court judge in Montana found that the DOS had not met its statutory requirements in analyzing the effects of the project on climate change and on species protected […]
In a final rule published in the early fall (September 28, 2018, (Federal Register (FR)), the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) withdrew or revised many provisions of the previous administration’s regulations to reduce waste of natural gas from venting, flaring, and leaks during oil and natural gas production activities on onshore federal and Indian […]
The EPA’s promulgation of multiple rules since 2001 to protect aquatic species that get swept into (entrainment) and against (impingement) industrial cooling water intake structures (CWISs) has met with legal challenges from both environmental groups and industry.
Under a new EPA proposal, approximately 310 sources subject to monitoring under the Agency’s NOx SIP Call regulations would be able to use options to the emissions monitoring requirements now required by the regulations.
The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has completed its effort to bring a 2016 Obama-era rule governing emissions from oil and natural gas (O&G) operations on federal and Indian lands in line with the current administration’s policy of promoting the development of these resources without regulatory “burdens that unnecessarily encumber energy […]
In a majority opinion, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit found that Oregon state violated neither the dormant Interstate Commerce Clause nor a provision of the federal Clean Air Act (CAA) when it assigned a carbon intensity value to transportation fuels produced out of state and imported into Oregon, […]
In its proposal to revise portions of the Obama EPA’s 2016 New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) to control emissions of the methane and other air pollutants from crude oil and natural gas facilities (40 CFR part 60, subpart OOOOa), the Trump EPA has made its intentions clear—save the oil and gas (O&G) industry up to […]