Trade Associations Urge EPA To Better Understand Industry

“It has been widely reported that the U.S. oil and natural gas industry is hard at work reducing its air emissions,” said Lee Fuller, IPAA executive vice president. “The industry has successfully cut its greenhouse gas emission levels, allowing the United States to become the world’s leader in cutting carbon. However, this proposed ICR has all the signs of a rushed job, not a thorough process to gather the facts and hear meaningful public comment from the people closest to the U.S. oil and natural gas industry. This rushed information-gathering effort is a misguided approach and we strongly encourage EPA to work with the industry and state agencies to thoroughly and accurately collect data—much of which is already publicly available—on oil and natural gas operations.”

The trade associations observe that EPA administrator Gina McCarthy has indicated that her agency is unfamiliar with the complexities of the U.S. oil and gas industry. “This is a real opportunity for the decisionmakers at EPA to better understand the complexities of the U.S. oil and natural gas industry,” Fuller said. “However, this information-gathering effort creates additional paperwork for companies…and adds unnecessary burdens on companies’ technical teams to prepare and submit rushed comments under enormous time constraints. Meanwhile, many of these same technical teams are currently developing their companies’ compliance programs for EPA’s June regulations and will then turn to their companies’ greenhouse gas inventory reports, which are due in the first quarter of 2017.”

Fuller added that instead of creating duplicative work and information, which goes against the intent of the Paperwork Reduction Act, EPA should first collect all of the publicly available data from industry databases or acquire it free from state agencies. EPA could then refine its search and request more targeted, specific information from industry. “As it stands now, EPA’s proposed ICR is clearly being driven by a tight political timeline to initiate and largely complete the information-gathering process before the end of this administration’s term,” Fuller concluded.

In June, IPAA sent a letter to EPA acting assistant administrator Janet McCabe requesting an extension to the initial comment period for the ICR to accommodate the time required of industry to appropriately respond. EPA denied the request. Instead, EPA said it would distribute the ICR questionnaires by Oct. 30. The first section, to be sent to all American producers, requires information in 30 days. The second section, intended to be sent to about 3000 producers and requiring far more detailed information, would be due in 120 days. The industry groups assert that among the challenges for EPA, as outlined by administrator McCarthy, is to understand the impact of regulations on the hundreds of thousands of small sources. Yet under EPA’s planned schedule, it would be sending its detailed questionnaires to companies before it ever received information back from the first questionnaire.