By Richard Denison

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) yesterday updated its website to provide a current snapshot of the status of new chemical reviews it has been conducting under last year’s amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  The statistics show that, despite being faced immediately with a substantial increase in responsibilities and workload as a result of the major changes made to TSCA, EPA has made enormous progress in implementing the new requirements.

Because the changes made by the Lautenberg Act to TSCA’s new chemicals program were both extensive and immediately effective upon enactment, a temporary backlog developed while EPA implemented the new requirements in reviewing both chemicals that were under review at the time of the law’s passage and those that came in subsequently.

Yesterday's announcement and the related statistics indicate that the backlog has markedly declined since January, falling from 300 to below 150 cases.  In a press release EPA says it is committed to eliminating the backlog entirely by July.

Equally important in the statistics is the fact that many more chemicals are being subject to orders imposing conditions on their commercialization, relative to the old law:  For about half of the reviews completed to date, EPA has issued a consent order.  This is to be expected:  The new law requires EPA to issue such orders whenever it either lacks sufficient information to evaluate a new chemical, or makes a risk- or exposure-based finding that indicates potential concern.  In such cases, the orders must impose conditions sufficient to mitigate the concern.

Yesterday’s announcement is welcome.  EPA needs to stay the course.  And the chemical industry needs to recognize that restoring public and market confidence in our chemical safety system requires a robust new chemicals program.

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) yesterday updated its website to provide a current snapshot of the status of new chemical reviews it has been conducting under last year’s amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  The statistics show that, despite being faced immediately with a substantial increase […]

By Richard Denison

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) yesterday updated its website to provide a current snapshot of the status of new chemical reviews it has been conducting under last year’s amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  The statistics show that, despite being faced immediately with a substantial increase in responsibilities and workload as a result of the major changes made to TSCA, EPA has made enormous progress in implementing the new requirements.

Because the changes made by the Lautenberg Act to TSCA’s new chemicals program were both extensive and immediately effective upon enactment, a temporary backlog developed while EPA implemented the new requirements in reviewing both chemicals that were under review at the time of the law’s passage and those that came in subsequently.

Yesterday's announcement and the related statistics indicate that the backlog has markedly declined since January, falling from 300 to below 150 cases.  In a press release EPA says it is committed to eliminating the backlog entirely by July.

Equally important in the statistics is the fact that many more chemicals are being subject to orders imposing conditions on their commercialization, relative to the old law:  For about half of the reviews completed to date, EPA has issued a consent order.  This is to be expected:  The new law requires EPA to issue such orders whenever it either lacks sufficient information to evaluate a new chemical, or makes a risk- or exposure-based finding that indicates potential concern.  In such cases, the orders must impose conditions sufficient to mitigate the concern.

Yesterday’s announcement is welcome.  EPA needs to stay the course.  And the chemical industry needs to recognize that restoring public and market confidence in our chemical safety system requires a robust new chemicals program.

By Richard Denison

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) yesterday updated its website to provide a current snapshot of the status of new chemical reviews it has been conducting under last year’s amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  The statistics show that, despite being faced immediately with a substantial increase in responsibilities and workload as a result of the major changes made to TSCA, EPA has made enormous progress in implementing the new requirements.

Because the changes made by the Lautenberg Act to TSCA’s new chemicals program were both extensive and immediately effective upon enactment, a temporary backlog developed while EPA implemented the new requirements in reviewing both chemicals that were under review at the time of the law’s passage and those that came in subsequently.

Yesterday's announcement and the related statistics indicate that the backlog has markedly declined since January, falling from 300 to below 150 cases.  In a press release EPA says it is committed to eliminating the backlog entirely by July.

Equally important in the statistics is the fact that many more chemicals are being subject to orders imposing conditions on their commercialization, relative to the old law:  For about half of the reviews completed to date, EPA has issued a consent order.  This is to be expected:  The new law requires EPA to issue such orders whenever it either lacks sufficient information to evaluate a new chemical, or makes a risk- or exposure-based finding that indicates potential concern.  In such cases, the orders must impose conditions sufficient to mitigate the concern.

Yesterday’s announcement is welcome.  EPA needs to stay the course.  And the chemical industry needs to recognize that restoring public and market confidence in our chemical safety system requires a robust new chemicals program.

By EDF Blogs

By Larissa Koehler and Jamie Fine

California has worked hard to build up a nation-leading clean energy portfolio. And the state has been hugely successful in adding renewable energy, especially solar, to the electric grid. However, having too much solar energy on the grid relative to energy demand can lead to grid operators turning off that clean power. This is costly for customers and makes it harder to meet our clean energy goals. One solution?  By putting price signals in place, such as time-of-use (or TOU) rates, we can encourage customers to use energy at times when solar or wind power is abundant.

TOU pricing does this by making electricity cheaper when the supply of electricity exceeds demand. Times of day when solar panels across the state are generating power will align with predictable low prices. If done right, TOU pricing can give Californians control over their energy bills, avoid pollution from fossil-fuel power plants, and maximize the production of renewable energy without additional cost.

The California Public Utilities Commission – the body that regulates utilities in the state – supports this strategy. In 2015 it decided to transition residential customers to a default TOU rate, with the explicit goal of integrating more renewable energy. Unfortunately, Southern California Edison (SCE) – a utility that serves electricity to over 3 million Californians – is proposing to delay putting some or all of their customers on these rates. This setback could have negative economic and environmental impacts.

Southern California Edison dragging its feet

SCE claims they need more time to update their billing system to handle the switch to TOU rates. For this reason, they propose to transition approximately half of their customers in 2018, with the rest to follow in 2020. Alternatively, they propose transitioning all of their customers in 2020.

Southern California Edison attempts to delay renewable-friendly electricity rates
Click To Tweet

Environmental Defense Fund recently protested this delay for four reasons:

• The delays will result in undesirable economic and environmental impacts – namely a mismatch between low energy prices and times when renewable energy is abundant. Without TOU rates, most Californians will continue to use energy at times when it is provided by fossil fuels or when the grid is stressed, instead of using the opportunity to maximize the use of the renewables we already have. This can lead to curtailment – switching-off our clean resources – which puts unnecessary costs on customers.
• Waiting until 2020 to transition some or all of SCE’s customers is against the spirit of the commission’s 2015 decision, which we interpret to establish a transition of all customers in 2019.
• The commission should not excuse SCE’s poor planning. When California started deploying advanced metering, or smart meters, over a decade ago, regulators and utilities explicitly contemplated an eventual transition to TOU rates. What’s more, it’s been over two years since the clear direction to transition to TOU rates came from the commission.
• SCE’s proposal sets a bad precedent. If the commission permits SCE to go down this path, it would empower the other investor-owned utilities – Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric – to seek the same sort of delay. This would throw a critical piece of meeting California’s clean energy targets into disarray.

Meaningful price signals

Additionally, the structure of SCE’s TOU rate itself does not present a strong enough price signal for customers to adapt the way they use energy. It may even prompt people to avoid using power at night, when wind is available. That’s why we’ve been advocating that the commission and the utilities test a wider variety of rates and more meaningful price differences, in order to provide greater incentives for customers who are able to shift some of their energy use.

If done right, TOU pricing can give Californians control over their energy bills.

SCE gets bill protections right

There is one aspect of SCE’s plan EDF supports: bill protections for customers. We are aware – and concerned – that certain customers, including low-income customers and customers in disadvantaged communities, may find it harder to adapt their energy usage to this new pricing.  As such, we fully support bill protections for vulnerable customers.

However, SCE also needs to actively think of ways to help those customers once it removes bill protections. For example, SCE should pursue the following:

• Allow customers to select their own best rate from a suite of options. This is something we’re calling, “personalized default” and it can help people start out with a rate that aligns with their preferences.
• Present personalized solutions. Utilities are equipped to do this using data they already have.
• Allow third party solutions providers access to anonymized data. Armed with this information, energy innovators – like demand response companies – can offer appropriate customer solutions.

SCE has a golden opportunity to show how a sunny California can translate to better economics, a more reliable grid, and a cleaner environment.  EDF will be one persistent voice ensuring SCE takes full advantage of this opportunity.

By EDF Blogs

By Larissa Koehler and Jamie Fine

California has worked hard to build up a nation-leading clean energy portfolio. And the state has been hugely successful in adding renewable energy, especially solar, to the electric grid. However, having too much solar energy on the grid relative to energy demand can lead to grid operators turning off that clean power. This is costly for customers and makes it harder to meet our clean energy goals. One solution?  By putting price signals in place, such as time-of-use (or TOU) rates, we can encourage customers to use energy at times when solar or wind power is abundant.

TOU pricing does this by making electricity cheaper when the supply of electricity exceeds demand. Times of day when solar panels across the state are generating power will align with predictable low prices. If done right, TOU pricing can give Californians control over their energy bills, avoid pollution from fossil-fuel power plants, and maximize the production of renewable energy without additional cost.

The California Public Utilities Commission – the body that regulates utilities in the state – supports this strategy. In 2015 it decided to transition residential customers to a default TOU rate, with the explicit goal of integrating more renewable energy. Unfortunately, Southern California Edison (SCE) – a utility that serves electricity to over 3 million Californians – is proposing to delay putting some or all of their customers on these rates. This setback could have negative economic and environmental impacts.

Southern California Edison dragging its feet

SCE claims they need more time to update their billing system to handle the switch to TOU rates. For this reason, they propose to transition approximately half of their customers in 2018, with the rest to follow in 2020. Alternatively, they propose transitioning all of their customers in 2020.

Southern California Edison attempts to delay renewable-friendly electricity rates
Click To Tweet

Environmental Defense Fund recently protested this delay for four reasons:

• The delays will result in undesirable economic and environmental impacts – namely a mismatch between low energy prices and times when renewable energy is abundant. Without TOU rates, most Californians will continue to use energy at times when it is provided by fossil fuels or when the grid is stressed, instead of using the opportunity to maximize the use of the renewables we already have. This can lead to curtailment – switching-off our clean resources – which puts unnecessary costs on customers.
• Waiting until 2020 to transition some or all of SCE’s customers is against the spirit of the commission’s 2015 decision, which we interpret to establish a transition of all customers in 2019.
• The commission should not excuse SCE’s poor planning. When California started deploying advanced metering, or smart meters, over a decade ago, regulators and utilities explicitly contemplated an eventual transition to TOU rates. What’s more, it’s been over two years since the clear direction to transition to TOU rates came from the commission.
• SCE’s proposal sets a bad precedent. If the commission permits SCE to go down this path, it would empower the other investor-owned utilities – Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric – to seek the same sort of delay. This would throw a critical piece of meeting California’s clean energy targets into disarray.

Meaningful price signals

Additionally, the structure of SCE’s TOU rate itself does not present a strong enough price signal for customers to adapt the way they use energy. It may even prompt people to avoid using power at night, when wind is available. That’s why we’ve been advocating that the commission and the utilities test a wider variety of rates and more meaningful price differences, in order to provide greater incentives for customers who are able to shift some of their energy use.

If done right, TOU pricing can give Californians control over their energy bills.

SCE gets bill protections right

There is one aspect of SCE’s plan EDF supports: bill protections for customers. We are aware – and concerned – that certain customers, including low-income customers and customers in disadvantaged communities, may find it harder to adapt their energy usage to this new pricing.  As such, we fully support bill protections for vulnerable customers.

However, SCE also needs to actively think of ways to help those customers once it removes bill protections. For example, SCE should pursue the following:

• Allow customers to select their own best rate from a suite of options. This is something we’re calling, “personalized default” and it can help people start out with a rate that aligns with their preferences.
• Present personalized solutions. Utilities are equipped to do this using data they already have.
• Allow third party solutions providers access to anonymized data. Armed with this information, energy innovators – like demand response companies – can offer appropriate customer solutions.

SCE has a golden opportunity to show how a sunny California can translate to better economics, a more reliable grid, and a cleaner environment.  EDF will be one persistent voice ensuring SCE takes full advantage of this opportunity.

By EDF Blogs

By Larissa Koehler and Jamie Fine

California has worked hard to build up a nation-leading clean energy portfolio. And the state has been hugely successful in adding renewable energy, especially solar, to the electric grid. However, having too much solar energy on the grid relative to energy demand can lead to grid operators turning off that clean power. This is costly for customers and makes it harder to meet our clean energy goals. One solution?  By putting price signals in place, such as time-of-use (or TOU) rates, we can encourage customers to use energy at times when solar or wind power is abundant.

TOU pricing does this by making electricity cheaper when the supply of electricity exceeds demand. Times of day when solar panels across the state are generating power will align with predictable low prices. If done right, TOU pricing can give Californians control over their energy bills, avoid pollution from fossil-fuel power plants, and maximize the production of renewable energy without additional cost.

The California Public Utilities Commission – the body that regulates utilities in the state – supports this strategy. In 2015 it decided to transition residential customers to a default TOU rate, with the explicit goal of integrating more renewable energy. Unfortunately, Southern California Edison (SCE) – a utility that serves electricity to over 3 million Californians – is proposing to delay putting some or all of their customers on these rates. This setback could have negative economic and environmental impacts.

Southern California Edison dragging its feet

SCE claims they need more time to update their billing system to handle the switch to TOU rates. For this reason, they propose to transition approximately half of their customers in 2018, with the rest to follow in 2020. Alternatively, they propose transitioning all of their customers in 2020.

Southern California Edison attempts to delay renewable-friendly electricity rates
Click To Tweet

Environmental Defense Fund recently protested this delay for four reasons:

• The delays will result in undesirable economic and environmental impacts – namely a mismatch between low energy prices and times when renewable energy is abundant. Without TOU rates, most Californians will continue to use energy at times when it is provided by fossil fuels or when the grid is stressed, instead of using the opportunity to maximize the use of the renewables we already have. This can lead to curtailment – switching-off our clean resources – which puts unnecessary costs on customers.
• Waiting until 2020 to transition some or all of SCE’s customers is against the spirit of the commission’s 2015 decision, which we interpret to establish a transition of all customers in 2019.
• The commission should not excuse SCE’s poor planning. When California started deploying advanced metering, or smart meters, over a decade ago, regulators and utilities explicitly contemplated an eventual transition to TOU rates. What’s more, it’s been over two years since the clear direction to transition to TOU rates came from the commission.
• SCE’s proposal sets a bad precedent. If the commission permits SCE to go down this path, it would empower the other investor-owned utilities – Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric – to seek the same sort of delay. This would throw a critical piece of meeting California’s clean energy targets into disarray.

Meaningful price signals

Additionally, the structure of SCE’s TOU rate itself does not present a strong enough price signal for customers to adapt the way they use energy. It may even prompt people to avoid using power at night, when wind is available. That’s why we’ve been advocating that the commission and the utilities test a wider variety of rates and more meaningful price differences, in order to provide greater incentives for customers who are able to shift some of their energy use.

If done right, TOU pricing can give Californians control over their energy bills.

SCE gets bill protections right

There is one aspect of SCE’s plan EDF supports: bill protections for customers. We are aware – and concerned – that certain customers, including low-income customers and customers in disadvantaged communities, may find it harder to adapt their energy usage to this new pricing.  As such, we fully support bill protections for vulnerable customers.

However, SCE also needs to actively think of ways to help those customers once it removes bill protections. For example, SCE should pursue the following:

• Allow customers to select their own best rate from a suite of options. This is something we’re calling, “personalized default” and it can help people start out with a rate that aligns with their preferences.
• Present personalized solutions. Utilities are equipped to do this using data they already have.
• Allow third party solutions providers access to anonymized data. Armed with this information, energy innovators – like demand response companies – can offer appropriate customer solutions.

SCE has a golden opportunity to show how a sunny California can translate to better economics, a more reliable grid, and a cleaner environment.  EDF will be one persistent voice ensuring SCE takes full advantage of this opportunity.

By EDF Blogs

By Larissa Koehler and Jamie Fine

California has worked hard to build up a nation-leading clean energy portfolio. And the state has been hugely successful in adding renewable energy, especially solar, to the electric grid. However, having too much solar energy on the grid relative to energy demand can lead to grid operators turning off that clean power. This is costly for customers and makes it harder to meet our clean energy goals. One solution?  By putting price signals in place, such as time-of-use (or TOU) rates, we can encourage customers to use energy at times when solar or wind power is abundant.

TOU pricing does this by making electricity cheaper when the supply of electricity exceeds demand. Times of day when solar panels across the state are generating power will align with predictable low prices. If done right, TOU pricing can give Californians control over their energy bills, avoid pollution from fossil-fuel power plants, and maximize the production of renewable energy without additional cost.

The California Public Utilities Commission – the body that regulates utilities in the state – supports this strategy. In 2015 it decided to transition residential customers to a default TOU rate, with the explicit goal of integrating more renewable energy. Unfortunately, Southern California Edison (SCE) – a utility that serves electricity to over 3 million Californians – is proposing to delay putting some or all of their customers on these rates. This setback could have negative economic and environmental impacts.

Southern California Edison dragging its feet

SCE claims they need more time to update their billing system to handle the switch to TOU rates. For this reason, they propose to transition approximately half of their customers in 2018, with the rest to follow in 2020. Alternatively, they propose transitioning all of their customers in 2020.

Southern California Edison attempts to delay renewable-friendly electricity rates
Click To Tweet

Environmental Defense Fund recently protested this delay for four reasons:

• The delays will result in undesirable economic and environmental impacts – namely a mismatch between low energy prices and times when renewable energy is abundant. Without TOU rates, most Californians will continue to use energy at times when it is provided by fossil fuels or when the grid is stressed, instead of using the opportunity to maximize the use of the renewables we already have. This can lead to curtailment – switching-off our clean resources – which puts unnecessary costs on customers.
• Waiting until 2020 to transition some or all of SCE’s customers is against the spirit of the commission’s 2015 decision, which we interpret to establish a transition of all customers in 2019.
• The commission should not excuse SCE’s poor planning. When California started deploying advanced metering, or smart meters, over a decade ago, regulators and utilities explicitly contemplated an eventual transition to TOU rates. What’s more, it’s been over two years since the clear direction to transition to TOU rates came from the commission.
• SCE’s proposal sets a bad precedent. If the commission permits SCE to go down this path, it would empower the other investor-owned utilities – Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric – to seek the same sort of delay. This would throw a critical piece of meeting California’s clean energy targets into disarray.

Meaningful price signals

Additionally, the structure of SCE’s TOU rate itself does not present a strong enough price signal for customers to adapt the way they use energy. It may even prompt people to avoid using power at night, when wind is available. That’s why we’ve been advocating that the commission and the utilities test a wider variety of rates and more meaningful price differences, in order to provide greater incentives for customers who are able to shift some of their energy use.

If done right, TOU pricing can give Californians control over their energy bills.

SCE gets bill protections right

There is one aspect of SCE’s plan EDF supports: bill protections for customers. We are aware – and concerned – that certain customers, including low-income customers and customers in disadvantaged communities, may find it harder to adapt their energy usage to this new pricing.  As such, we fully support bill protections for vulnerable customers.

However, SCE also needs to actively think of ways to help those customers once it removes bill protections. For example, SCE should pursue the following:

• Allow customers to select their own best rate from a suite of options. This is something we’re calling, “personalized default” and it can help people start out with a rate that aligns with their preferences.
• Present personalized solutions. Utilities are equipped to do this using data they already have.
• Allow third party solutions providers access to anonymized data. Armed with this information, energy innovators – like demand response companies – can offer appropriate customer solutions.

SCE has a golden opportunity to show how a sunny California can translate to better economics, a more reliable grid, and a cleaner environment.  EDF will be one persistent voice ensuring SCE takes full advantage of this opportunity.

By Larissa Koehler and Jamie Fine California has worked hard to build up a nation-leading clean energy portfolio. And the state has been hugely successful in adding renewable energy, especially solar, to the electric grid. However, having too much solar energy on the grid relative to energy demand can lead to grid operators turning off […]

Written by Molly Rauch

Moms Clean Air Force and former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy in Paris.

 

We are the patriots. We are the nurturers, the breadwinners, the boo-boo soothers. We dream about the future, because we are watching the future grow up before our eyes. And we fight the nightmares, because we can’t stand to see fear in our children’s faces.

Last week, Trump said he was withdrawing the US from the Paris climate agreement.

I am devastated by this corrupt, myopic decision. But I got up this morning, and hugged my kids, and made the lunches, and checked that the bike helmet was on, and checked that the homework was packed, and asked for the cereal bowl to be cleared, and kissed my children goodbye, and told them to have a good day, and said that I loved them.

That’s my job, as a mom. To carry on, with love.

Once, many years ago, I was home with my babies when someone tried to break into my house. I remember the sound of the intruder pounding on the back door as he tried to get in. While I frantically gathered my kids in one room, I could feel that back door pounding in every cell of my body. It was the loudest sound I had ever heard.

I’ve been thinking about that pounding on the door, because I have the same feeling today.

When my children are threatened, I respond. I protect. I fight back.

Trump has withdrawn America from the global climate agreement endorsed by every nation except Syria and Nicaragua. (Poor Nicaragua, getting lumped in with Syria and the US. Nicaragua rejected the agreement because it didn’t go far enough to slash greenhouse gas emissions.)

Parents of America, it’s time. Hear the pounding on the door. Feel it in every cell, feel it in your hearts.

There are those who are saying, it’s Game Over for the climate now. By exiting the Paris agreement, we have blown our chance to meaningfully respond to this global crisis. But parents know: our kids will continue to grow and learn and live. We get up, we study, we work, and we do our best as a family. The game isn’t over, not by a long shot. Our kids are still here, and it’s our job to take care of them.

Trump’s decision is painful. It grates against the moral leanings, the deepest wishes, the most cherished values of my soul. You see, I went to Paris in 2015. I was there to join parent groups from around the world, and to represent you, American Parents. We gathered to observe the negotiations. We showed up to highlight that parents everywhere were watching. We showed up to assert that climate change was not just happening to the Earth, it was also happening to us. It was time to respond as if our children’s very lives depended upon it – which they do, actually.

We hugged, cried, and, yes, raised a few glasses of wine, when the agreement was finalized. Almost every nation on Earth had come together to solve this problem in the only way that is possible – globally. It wasn’t everything needed, not by a long shot (Nicaragua, we hear you) but it was an essential, absolutely necessary step toward the future we want. And as such, it was a gift for my children, and for yours.

Now, that moment of celebration feels like a precious firefly, gone dark. And there is a thunderous pounding on the door.

Climate change is real, it’s happening now, and it will get worse, unless we do something about it. There is no more important stakeholder in this problem than our children — all children.

When the seas rise, when the storms hit, when the air pollution spikes, when the mosquitoes and ticks colonize new areas, when the crops falter and the droughts squeeze our water supplies, that will be our children out there in the future, breathing, loving, surviving, struggling, wondering.

Wondering: Why didn’t they do something about this problem when there was still time?

Climate change is a complex, global problem. That means that we need a collective response to it. The only way to get that is to demand it of our leaders. If they can’t provide it, well then, let’s get us some new ones – or become the leaders we need, at every single level of government, at every single election.

We know how to dream about the future, because we are the parents. We are the patriots, protecting our kids, our communities, and our beautiful country. Let’s do this.

TELL CONGRESS: NOBODY VOTED TO MAKE AMERICA DIRTY AGAIN

(This post first appeared on EDF’s Energy Exchange) Today, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt officially suspended vital air pollution safeguards that will reduce harmful methane, smog-forming volatile organic compounds and toxic air pollutants like benzene from new and modified sources in the oil and natural gas sector – a move that puts the […]

The post Suspension of clean air standards for the oil and gas industry: an urgent health threat for Americans appeared first on Climate 411.

By Peter Zalzal

(This post first appeared on EDF's Energy Exchange)

Today, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt officially suspended vital air pollution safeguards that will reduce harmful methane, smog-forming volatile organic compounds and toxic air pollutants like benzene from new and modified sources in the oil and natural gas sector – a move that puts the health and safety of Americans across the country at risk.

EDF, together with a coalition of environmental groups, filed a legal challenge and an emergency motion as soon as the suspension was published.

Our brief asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to immediately block Administrator Pruitt’s dangerous action from taking effect.

Suspending the standards threatens the health and welfare of Americans who live in close proximity to oil and gas development by allowing thousands of tons of these harmful air pollutants to be emitted into the atmosphere.

Each day this unlawful suspension is in place, the harm is compounded – more new wells are drilled, and other wells subject to the standards are allowed to continue emitting harmful pollution which cannot later be removed from the air.

Administrator Pruitt didn’t bother to identify these impacts before suspending these vital safeguards, nor did he take public input on this action.

Here’s more information on the suspension, and why we felt it was so important to take emergency legal action:

Administrator Pruitt’s actions show an intent to permanently strip away vital health protections

Last year – after years of deliberation and extensive public input – EPA issued long-overdue nationwide standards that require new and modified oil and gas facilities to curb emissions of methane and other harmful pollutants using proven, cost-effective best practices and technologies.

On April 18th, Administrator Pruitt sent a letter to several large oil and gas trade associations notifying them that he would reconsider parts of those standards.

In particular, Administrator Pruitt targeted the leak detection and repair provisions of the rule —requirements that operators inspect for gas leaks at their sites using readily-available technologies like infrared cameras, and then repair any leaks in a timely manner.

These protections against leaks are the cornerstone of EPA’s standards, accounting for up to 45 percent of their entire projected reductions of smog-forming volatile organic compounds, more than 50 percent of their reductions of methane pollution, and approximately 90 percent of their reductions of toxic air pollution.

Administrator Pruitt also alerted the oil and gas trade associations that he would suspend the leak detection and repair standards for 90 days, purportedly while EPA was looking at these provisions.

Then, just a few days before June 3, 2017 — the date by which operators would have had to complete their first inspection — Administrator Pruitt announced that he would issue today’s notice suspending the leak detection and repair standards in their entirety.

That notice was short on details, but did include two important pieces of information that reveal Pruitt’s true intent:

First, it states that EPA will “look broadly at the entire 2016 Rule.”

Second, it invokes the recent executive order which, among other things, directed EPA to “suspend, revise, or rescind” these 2016 standards.

Couple that with the fact that EPA has simultaneously sent to the Office and Management and Budget a proposal to extend, for an indeterminate period, the 90-day stay, and it’s pretty clear what Pruitt’s plans are – to permanently strip away standards designed to protect millions of Americans from harmful oil and gas pollution.

Thousands of polluters avoid taking common sense actions to find and fix leaks

Entirely absent from Administrator Pruitt’s notice today was any attempt to analyze or understand the impacts his suspension of these protections would have on the tens of thousands of Americans who stood to benefit from their implementation.

To support our request to the D.C. Circuit [PDF] to block Administrator Pruitt’s suspension, we did look at the impacts Americans would face – and they are serious.

Analyzing data from a widely-used database of oil and gas wells, EDF scientist Dr. David Lyon determined that more than 18,000 wells across the nation – all of them built or modified since September 2015 – will no longer be required to find and fix leaks during the current suspension.

Of these, more than 11,000 are located in states without any leak detection and repair standards of their own — meaning that, because of Administrator Pruitt’s action, these sources would entirely avoid leak inspection requirements and be free to continue emitting pollution unabated.

If the suspension stands, Dr. Lyon estimates that during the next three months these sources will emit up to an additional 17,000 tons of methane, 4,700 tons of smog-forming volatile organic compounds, and 181 tons of hazardous air pollutants.

Here’s a look at all wells covered by the leak detection standards, and at those wells in states without any state-level leak detection program:

EDF has mapped wells that have been drilled or completed since September of 2015 and so would be covered by these vital clean air standards – see the searchable, interactive database here to find the wells in your community.

Dr. Lyon’s analysis likely understates the true impact of Administrator Pruitt’s suspension.

For example, Wyoming’s standards only apply in the Upper Green River Basin, and not state-wide. In addition, some states excluded by the analysis have strong state-level leak detection programs, but others – including Utah and Pennsylvania – are substantially weaker than EPA’s. In those areas, the EPA standards would have had meaningful additional benefits, if allowed to take effect.

In addition, though based on the most recently available data, most states lack drilling and completion information from the last several months. And right now Baker Hughes reports that there are more than 900 active drill rigs across the country drilling new wells – none of which would be subject to EPA’s leak detection and repair requirements while Administrator Pruitt’s suspension is in effect.

These sources emit harmful air pollution

Ultimately, EPA’s suspension will result in communities across the country facing additional harmful pollution from the oil and gas sector.

EDF Senior Health Scientist Dr. Elena Craft provided information on the impacts of smog-forming and hazardous air pollution.

Ground-level ozone, more commonly known as smog, forms when volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides mix in the presence of sunlight. The result is a harmful air pollutant that can have acute respiratory effects and serious cardiovascular impacts. The summer months are often when smog is at its worst.

Dr. Craft found that more than 1,800 wells that will now be allowed to continue emitting smog-forming pollution are located in areas of the country that violate the health-based 2008 smog standards.

During  the 2016 smog season, counties with wells that would be required to detect and repair their leaks but for Administrator Pruitt’s suspension had 7,832 moderate days (yellow flag warning), 549 days deemed unhealthy for sensitive groups (orange flag warning), 94 unhealthy days (red flag warning), and six very unhealthy and hazardous days (purple flag warning).

Administrator Pruitt’s suspension, if it’s allowed to stand, lets these and other sources continue emitting smog-forming pollution unabated during – at minimum – the months of June, July, and August. Those are the very months when smog is at its worst and communities are most susceptible to its harmful health effect.

EDF climate scientist Dr. Ilissa Ocko provided information about the harmful effects of additional climate-destabilizing methane emissions from these sources.

Methane is a powerful near-term climate forcer and, through its formation of tropospheric ozone, also contributes to ground-level ozone pollution.

During the time these additional methane emissions remain in the atmosphere, they will have the same 20-year climate impact as more than 300,000 cars driving for one year, or more than 1.5 billion pounds of coal burned.

Once in the atmosphere, there is no available mechanism to remove this climate pollution or reverse its disruptive effects.

Administrator Pruitt’s notice suspending the leak detection and repair requirements doesn’t take any of these impacts into account.

Leak detection standards are common sense and highly cost-effective

In our legal filing today [PDF], we also document the reasonable and highly cost-effective nature of the leak detection standards to underscore the feasibility of allowing the standards to take effect as planned.

The 2016 standards gave operators a year to plan for and complete their initial inspection —time that was provided at the express request of many oil and gas operators.

Many companies are already effectively complying with similar standards in states like Colorado, Wyoming, and California.

Ultimately, as set forth in an analysis by EDF economists Jonathan Camuzeaux and Dr. Kristina Mohlin, the costs of doing common sense leak detection and repair are small. For instance, there are companies that provide these services for $250 per well site. This is a tiny fraction of the average annual revenue produced by the wells covered by Administrator Pruitt’s suspension, which our economists estimate to be approximately $3 million. It’s also negligible when compared to the substantial investment that operators make to drill a new well, which ranges from $4 to $8 million.

There is simply no reason to suspend or rescind leak detection and repair standards on the basis of cost concerns.

The legal basis for EPA’s suspension is unsound

The Clean Air Act provision that Administrator Pruitt relied on to suspend the standards enables EPA to reconsider aspects of rules when parties have not had an opportunity to comment on an issue during rulemaking. That may happen because new data becomes available later, or because an issue is first presented in a final rule.

Only when EPA identifies an issue that meets these criteria does it have the authority to temporarily suspend requirements while it undertakes a reconsideration.

But, as even the American Petroleum Institute recognized in filings with EPA, neither of the issues which EPA has identified for reconsideration meet this legal standard.

In fact, both issues were raised in the proposed rule and extensively addressed in comments to EPA by industry and other parties before the rule was finalized.

Administrator Pruitt’s suspension appears to be clearly pretextual – using flimsy bases for reconsideration as an excuse for wholesale rollbacks of climate and health protections.

This unprecedented and unlawful action by Administrator Pruitt will have clear and immediate public health impacts on communities all over the country that are near oil and gas development – impacts that the Administrator didn’t bother to identify, much less consider.

The suspension of these standards represents another dangerous and unlawful handout from Administrator Pruitt to the oil and gas industry, to the detriment of millions of American with a right to clean, healthy air, and a safer climate.

By Peter Zalzal

(This post first appeared on EDF's Energy Exchange)

Today, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt officially suspended vital air pollution safeguards that will reduce harmful methane, smog-forming volatile organic compounds and toxic air pollutants like benzene from new and modified sources in the oil and natural gas sector – a move that puts the health and safety of Americans across the country at risk.

EDF, together with a coalition of environmental groups, filed a legal challenge and an emergency motion as soon as the suspension was published.

Our brief asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to immediately block Administrator Pruitt’s dangerous action from taking effect.

Suspending the standards threatens the health and welfare of Americans who live in close proximity to oil and gas development by allowing thousands of tons of these harmful air pollutants to be emitted into the atmosphere.

Each day this unlawful suspension is in place, the harm is compounded – more new wells are drilled, and other wells subject to the standards are allowed to continue emitting harmful pollution which cannot later be removed from the air.

Administrator Pruitt didn’t bother to identify these impacts before suspending these vital safeguards, nor did he take public input on this action.

Here’s more information on the suspension, and why we felt it was so important to take emergency legal action:

Administrator Pruitt’s actions show an intent to permanently strip away vital health protections

Last year – after years of deliberation and extensive public input – EPA issued long-overdue nationwide standards that require new and modified oil and gas facilities to curb emissions of methane and other harmful pollutants using proven, cost-effective best practices and technologies.

On April 18th, Administrator Pruitt sent a letter to several large oil and gas trade associations notifying them that he would reconsider parts of those standards.

In particular, Administrator Pruitt targeted the leak detection and repair provisions of the rule —requirements that operators inspect for gas leaks at their sites using readily-available technologies like infrared cameras, and then repair any leaks in a timely manner.

These protections against leaks are the cornerstone of EPA’s standards, accounting for up to 45 percent of their entire projected reductions of smog-forming volatile organic compounds, more than 50 percent of their reductions of methane pollution, and approximately 90 percent of their reductions of toxic air pollution.

Administrator Pruitt also alerted the oil and gas trade associations that he would suspend the leak detection and repair standards for 90 days, purportedly while EPA was looking at these provisions.

Then, just a few days before June 3, 2017 — the date by which operators would have had to complete their first inspection — Administrator Pruitt announced that he would issue today’s notice suspending the leak detection and repair standards in their entirety.

That notice was short on details, but did include two important pieces of information that reveal Pruitt’s true intent:

First, it states that EPA will “look broadly at the entire 2016 Rule.”

Second, it invokes the recent executive order which, among other things, directed EPA to “suspend, revise, or rescind” these 2016 standards.

Couple that with the fact that EPA has simultaneously sent to the Office and Management and Budget a proposal to extend, for an indeterminate period, the 90-day stay, and it’s pretty clear what Pruitt’s plans are – to permanently strip away standards designed to protect millions of Americans from harmful oil and gas pollution.

Thousands of polluters avoid taking common sense actions to find and fix leaks

Entirely absent from Administrator Pruitt’s notice today was any attempt to analyze or understand the impacts his suspension of these protections would have on the tens of thousands of Americans who stood to benefit from their implementation.

To support our request to the D.C. Circuit [PDF] to block Administrator Pruitt’s suspension, we did look at the impacts Americans would face – and they are serious.

Analyzing data from a widely-used database of oil and gas wells, EDF scientist Dr. David Lyon determined that more than 18,000 wells across the nation – all of them built or modified since September 2015 – will no longer be required to find and fix leaks during the current suspension.

Of these, more than 11,000 are located in states without any leak detection and repair standards of their own — meaning that, because of Administrator Pruitt’s action, these sources would entirely avoid leak inspection requirements and be free to continue emitting pollution unabated.

If the suspension stands, Dr. Lyon estimates that during the next three months these sources will emit up to an additional 17,000 tons of methane, 4,700 tons of smog-forming volatile organic compounds, and 181 tons of hazardous air pollutants.

Here’s a look at all wells covered by the leak detection standards, and at those wells in states without any state-level leak detection program:

EDF has mapped wells that have been drilled or completed since September of 2015 and so would be covered by these vital clean air standards – see the searchable, interactive database here to find the wells in your community.

Dr. Lyon’s analysis likely understates the true impact of Administrator Pruitt’s suspension.

For example, Wyoming’s standards only apply in the Upper Green River Basin, and not state-wide. In addition, some states excluded by the analysis have strong state-level leak detection programs, but others – including Utah and Pennsylvania – are substantially weaker than EPA’s. In those areas, the EPA standards would have had meaningful additional benefits, if allowed to take effect.

In addition, though based on the most recently available data, most states lack drilling and completion information from the last several months. And right now Baker Hughes reports that there are more than 900 active drill rigs across the country drilling new wells – none of which would be subject to EPA’s leak detection and repair requirements while Administrator Pruitt’s suspension is in effect.

These sources emit harmful air pollution

Ultimately, EPA’s suspension will result in communities across the country facing additional harmful pollution from the oil and gas sector.

EDF Senior Health Scientist Dr. Elena Craft provided information on the impacts of smog-forming and hazardous air pollution.

Ground-level ozone, more commonly known as smog, forms when volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides mix in the presence of sunlight. The result is a harmful air pollutant that can have acute respiratory effects and serious cardiovascular impacts. The summer months are often when smog is at its worst.

Dr. Craft found that more than 1,800 wells that will now be allowed to continue emitting smog-forming pollution are located in areas of the country that violate the health-based 2008 smog standards.

During  the 2016 smog season, counties with wells that would be required to detect and repair their leaks but for Administrator Pruitt’s suspension had 7,832 moderate days (yellow flag warning), 549 days deemed unhealthy for sensitive groups (orange flag warning), 94 unhealthy days (red flag warning), and six very unhealthy and hazardous days (purple flag warning).

Administrator Pruitt’s suspension, if it’s allowed to stand, lets these and other sources continue emitting smog-forming pollution unabated during – at minimum – the months of June, July, and August. Those are the very months when smog is at its worst and communities are most susceptible to its harmful health effect.

EDF climate scientist Dr. Ilissa Ocko provided information about the harmful effects of additional climate-destabilizing methane emissions from these sources.

Methane is a powerful near-term climate forcer and, through its formation of tropospheric ozone, also contributes to ground-level ozone pollution.

During the time these additional methane emissions remain in the atmosphere, they will have the same 20-year climate impact as more than 300,000 cars driving for one year, or more than 1.5 billion pounds of coal burned.

Once in the atmosphere, there is no available mechanism to remove this climate pollution or reverse its disruptive effects.

Administrator Pruitt’s notice suspending the leak detection and repair requirements doesn’t take any of these impacts into account.

Leak detection standards are common sense and highly cost-effective

In our legal filing today [PDF], we also document the reasonable and highly cost-effective nature of the leak detection standards to underscore the feasibility of allowing the standards to take effect as planned.

The 2016 standards gave operators a year to plan for and complete their initial inspection —time that was provided at the express request of many oil and gas operators.

Many companies are already effectively complying with similar standards in states like Colorado, Wyoming, and California.

Ultimately, as set forth in an analysis by EDF economists Jonathan Camuzeaux and Dr. Kristina Mohlin, the costs of doing common sense leak detection and repair are small. For instance, there are companies that provide these services for $250 per well site. This is a tiny fraction of the average annual revenue produced by the wells covered by Administrator Pruitt’s suspension, which our economists estimate to be approximately $3 million. It’s also negligible when compared to the substantial investment that operators make to drill a new well, which ranges from $4 to $8 million.

There is simply no reason to suspend or rescind leak detection and repair standards on the basis of cost concerns.

The legal basis for EPA’s suspension is unsound

The Clean Air Act provision that Administrator Pruitt relied on to suspend the standards enables EPA to reconsider aspects of rules when parties have not had an opportunity to comment on an issue during rulemaking. That may happen because new data becomes available later, or because an issue is first presented in a final rule.

Only when EPA identifies an issue that meets these criteria does it have the authority to temporarily suspend requirements while it undertakes a reconsideration.

But, as even the American Petroleum Institute recognized in filings with EPA, neither of the issues which EPA has identified for reconsideration meet this legal standard.

In fact, both issues were raised in the proposed rule and extensively addressed in comments to EPA by industry and other parties before the rule was finalized.

Administrator Pruitt’s suspension appears to be clearly pretextual – using flimsy bases for reconsideration as an excuse for wholesale rollbacks of climate and health protections.

This unprecedented and unlawful action by Administrator Pruitt will have clear and immediate public health impacts on communities all over the country that are near oil and gas development – impacts that the Administrator didn’t bother to identify, much less consider.

The suspension of these standards represents another dangerous and unlawful handout from Administrator Pruitt to the oil and gas industry, to the detriment of millions of American with a right to clean, healthy air, and a safer climate.

By Peter Zalzal

Today, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt officially suspended vital air pollution safeguards that will reduce harmful methane, smog-forming volatile organic compounds and toxic air pollutants like benzene from new and modified sources in the oil and natural gas sector – a move that puts the health and safety of Americans across the country at risk.

EDF, together with a coalition of environmental groups, filed a legal challenge and an emergency motion as soon as the suspension was published.

Our brief asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to immediately block Administrator Pruitt’s dangerous action from taking effect.

Suspending the standards threatens the health and welfare of Americans who live in close proximity to oil and gas development by allowing thousands of tons of these harmful air pollutants to be emitted into the atmosphere.

Each day this unlawful suspension is in place, the harm is compounded – more new wells are drilled, and other wells subject to the standards are allowed to continue emitting harmful pollution which cannot later be removed from the air.

Administrator Pruitt didn’t bother to identify these impacts before suspending these vital safeguards, nor did he take public input on this action.

Here’s more information on the suspension, and why we felt it was so important to take emergency legal action:

Administrator Pruitt’s actions show an intent to permanently strip away vital health protections

Last year – after years of deliberation and extensive public input – EPA issued long-overdue nationwide standards that require new and modified oil and gas facilities to curb emissions of methane and other harmful pollutants using proven, cost-effective best practices and technologies.

On April 18th, Administrator Pruitt sent a letter to several large oil and gas trade associations notifying them that he would reconsider parts of those standards.

In particular, Administrator Pruitt targeted the leak detection and repair provisions of the rule —requirements that operators inspect for gas leaks at their sites using readily-available technologies like infrared cameras, and then repair any leaks in a timely manner.

These protections against leaks are the cornerstone of EPA’s standards, accounting for up to 45 percent of their entire projected reductions of smog-forming volatile organic compounds, more than 50 percent of their reductions of methane pollution, and approximately 90 percent of their reductions of toxic air pollution.

Administrator Pruitt also alerted the oil and gas trade associations that he would suspend the leak detection and repair standards for 90 days, purportedly while EPA was looking at these provisions.

Then, just a few days before June 3, 2017 — the date by which operators would have had to complete their first inspection — Administrator Pruitt announced that he would issue today’s notice suspending the leak detection and repair standards in their entirety.

That notice was short on details, but did include two important pieces of information that reveal Pruitt’s true intent:

First, it states that EPA will “look broadly at the entire 2016 Rule.”

Second, it invokes the recent executive order which, among other things, directed EPA to “suspend, revise, or rescind” these 2016 standards.

Couple that with the fact that EPA has simultaneously sent to the Office and Management and Budget a proposal to extend, for an indeterminate period, the 90-day stay, and it’s pretty clear what Pruitt’s plans are – to permanently strip away standards designed to protect millions of Americans from harmful oil and gas pollution.

Thousands of polluters avoid taking common sense actions to find and fix leaks

Entirely absent from Administrator Pruitt’s notice today was any attempt to analyze or understand the impacts his suspension of these protections would have on the tens of thousands of Americans who stood to benefit from their implementation.

To support our request to the D.C. Circuit [PDF] to block Administrator Pruitt’s suspension, we did look at the impacts Americans would face – and they are serious.

Analyzing data from a widely-used database of oil and gas wells, EDF scientist Dr. David Lyon determined that more than 18,000 wells across the nation – all of them built or modified since September 2015 – will no longer be required to find and fix leaks during the current suspension.

Of these, more than 11,000 are located in states without any leak detection and repair standards of their own — meaning that, because of Administrator Pruitt’s action, these sources would entirely avoid leak inspection requirements and be free to continue emitting pollution unabated.

If the suspension stands, Dr. Lyon estimates that during the next three months these sources will emit up to an additional 17,000 tons of methane, 4,700 tons of smog-forming volatile organic compounds, and 181 tons of hazardous air pollutants.

Here’s a look at all wells covered by the leak detection standards, and at those wells in states without any state-level leak detection program:

EDF has mapped wells that have been drilled or completed since September of 2015 and so would be covered by these vital clean air standards – see the searchable, interactive database here to find the wells in your community.

Dr. Lyon’s analysis likely understates the true impact of Administrator Pruitt’s suspension.

For example, Wyoming’s standards only apply in the Upper Green River Basin, and not state-wide. In addition, some states excluded by the analysis have strong state-level leak detection programs, but others – including Utah and Pennsylvania – are substantially weaker than EPA’s. In those areas, the EPA standards would have had meaningful additional benefits, if allowed to take effect.

Also, though based on the most recently available data, most states lack drilling and completion information from the last several months. And right now Baker Hughes reports that there are more than 900 active drill rigs across the country drilling new wells – none of which would be subject to EPA’s leak detection and repair requirements while Administrator Pruitt’s suspension is in effect.

These sources emit harmful air pollution

Ultimately, EPA’s suspension will result in communities across the country facing additional harmful pollution from the oil and gas sector.

EDF Senior Health Scientist Dr. Elena Craft provided information on the impacts of smog-forming and hazardous air pollution.

Ground-level ozone, more commonly known as smog, forms when volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides mix in the presence of sunlight. The result is a harmful air pollutant that can have acute respiratory effects and serious cardiovascular impacts. The summer months are often when smog is at its worst.

Dr. Craft found that more than 1,800 wells that will now be allowed to continue emitting smog-forming pollution are located in areas of the country that violate the health-based 2008 smog standards.

During  the 2016 smog season, counties with wells that would be required to detect and repair their leaks but for Administrator Pruitt’s suspension had 7,832 moderate days (yellow flag warning), 549 days deemed unhealthy for sensitive groups (orange flag warning), 94 unhealthy days (red flag warning), and six very unhealthy and hazardous days (purple flag warning).

Administrator Pruitt’s suspension, if it’s allowed to stand, lets these and other sources continue emitting smog-forming pollution unabated during – at minimum – the months of June, July, and August. Those are the very months when smog is at its worst and communities are most susceptible to its harmful health effect.

EDF climate scientist Dr. Ilissa Ocko provided information about the harmful effects of additional climate-destabilizing methane emissions from these sources.

Methane is a powerful near-term climate forcer and, through its formation of tropospheric ozone, also contributes to ground-level ozone pollution.

During the time these additional methane emissions remain in the atmosphere, they will have the same 20-year climate impact as more than 300,000 cars driving for one year, or more than 1.5 billion pounds of coal burned.

Once in the atmosphere, there is no available mechanism to remove this climate pollution or reverse its disruptive effects.

Administrator Pruitt’s notice suspending the leak detection and repair requirements doesn’t take any of these impacts into account.

Leak detection standards are common sense and highly cost-effective

In our legal filing today [PDF], we also document the reasonable and highly cost-effective nature of the leak detection standards to underscore the feasibility of allowing the standards to take effect as planned.

The 2016 standards gave operators a year to plan for and complete their initial inspection —time that was provided at the express request of many oil and gas operators.

Many companies are already effectively complying with similar standards in states like Colorado, Wyoming, and California.

Ultimately, as set forth in an analysis by EDF economists Jonathan Camuzeaux and Dr. Kristina Mohlin, the costs of doing common sense leak detection and repair are small. For instance, there are companies that provide these services for $250 per well site. This is a tiny fraction of the average annual revenue produced by the wells covered by Administrator Pruitt’s suspension, which our economists estimate to be approximately $3 million. It’s also negligible when compared to the substantial investment that operators make to drill a new well, which ranges from $4 to $8 million.

There is simply no reason to suspend or rescind leak detection and repair standards on the basis of cost concerns.

The legal basis for EPA’s suspension is unsound

The Clean Air Act provision that Administrator Pruitt relied on to suspend the standards enables EPA to reconsider aspects of rules when parties have not had an opportunity to comment on an issue during rulemaking. That may happen because new data becomes available later, or because an issue is first presented in a final rule.

Only when EPA identifies an issue that meets these criteria does it have the authority to temporarily suspend requirements while it undertakes a reconsideration.

But, as even the American Petroleum Institute recognized in filings with EPA, neither of the issues which EPA has identified for reconsideration meet this legal standard.

In fact, both issues were raised in the proposed rule and extensively addressed in comments to EPA by industry and other parties before the rule was finalized.

Administrator Pruitt’s suspension appears to be clearly pretextual – using flimsy bases for reconsideration as an excuse for wholesale rollbacks of climate and health protections.

This unprecedented and unlawful action by Administrator Pruitt will have clear and immediate public health impacts on communities all over the country that are near oil and gas development – impacts that the Administrator didn’t bother to identify, much less consider.

The suspension of these standards represents another dangerous and unlawful handout from Administrator Pruitt to the oil and gas industry, to the detriment of millions of American with a right to clean, healthy air, and a safer climate.

 

By Peter Zalzal

Today, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt officially suspended vital air pollution safeguards that will reduce harmful methane, smog-forming volatile organic compounds and toxic air pollutants like benzene from new and modified sources in the oil and natural gas sector – a move that puts the health and safety of Americans across the country at risk.

EDF, together with a coalition of environmental groups, filed a legal challenge and an emergency motion as soon as the suspension was published.

Our brief asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to immediately block Administrator Pruitt’s dangerous action from taking effect.

Suspending the standards threatens the health and welfare of Americans who live in close proximity to oil and gas development by allowing thousands of tons of these harmful air pollutants to be emitted into the atmosphere.

Each day this unlawful suspension is in place, the harm is compounded – more new wells are drilled, and other wells subject to the standards are allowed to continue emitting harmful pollution which cannot later be removed from the air.

Administrator Pruitt didn’t bother to identify these impacts before suspending these vital safeguards, nor did he take public input on this action.

Here’s more information on the suspension, and why we felt it was so important to take emergency legal action:

Administrator Pruitt’s actions show an intent to permanently strip away vital health protections

Last year – after years of deliberation and extensive public input – EPA issued long-overdue nationwide standards that require new and modified oil and gas facilities to curb emissions of methane and other harmful pollutants using proven, cost-effective best practices and technologies.

On April 18th, Administrator Pruitt sent a letter to several large oil and gas trade associations notifying them that he would reconsider parts of those standards.

In particular, Administrator Pruitt targeted the leak detection and repair provisions of the rule —requirements that operators inspect for gas leaks at their sites using readily-available technologies like infrared cameras, and then repair any leaks in a timely manner.

These protections against leaks are the cornerstone of EPA’s standards, accounting for up to 45 percent of their entire projected reductions of smog-forming volatile organic compounds, more than 50 percent of their reductions of methane pollution, and approximately 90 percent of their reductions of toxic air pollution.

Administrator Pruitt also alerted the oil and gas trade associations that he would suspend the leak detection and repair standards for 90 days, purportedly while EPA was looking at these provisions.

Then, just a few days before June 3, 2017 — the date by which operators would have had to complete their first inspection — Administrator Pruitt announced that he would issue today’s notice suspending the leak detection and repair standards in their entirety.

That notice was short on details, but did include two important pieces of information that reveal Pruitt’s true intent:

First, it states that EPA will “look broadly at the entire 2016 Rule.”

Second, it invokes the recent executive order which, among other things, directed EPA to “suspend, revise, or rescind” these 2016 standards.

Couple that with the fact that EPA has simultaneously sent to the Office and Management and Budget a proposal to extend, for an indeterminate period, the 90-day stay, and it’s pretty clear what Pruitt’s plans are – to permanently strip away standards designed to protect millions of Americans from harmful oil and gas pollution.

Thousands of polluters avoid taking common sense actions to find and fix leaks

Entirely absent from Administrator Pruitt’s notice today was any attempt to analyze or understand the impacts his suspension of these protections would have on the tens of thousands of Americans who stood to benefit from their implementation.

To support our request to the D.C. Circuit [PDF] to block Administrator Pruitt’s suspension, we did look at the impacts Americans would face – and they are serious.

Analyzing data from a widely-used database of oil and gas wells, EDF scientist Dr. David Lyon determined that more than 18,000 wells across the nation – all of them built or modified since September 2015 – will no longer be required to find and fix leaks during the current suspension.

Of these, more than 11,000 are located in states without any leak detection and repair standards of their own — meaning that, because of Administrator Pruitt’s action, these sources would entirely avoid leak inspection requirements and be free to continue emitting pollution unabated.

If the suspension stands, Dr. Lyon estimates that during the next three months these sources will emit up to an additional 17,000 tons of methane, 4,700 tons of smog-forming volatile organic compounds, and 181 tons of hazardous air pollutants.

Here’s a look at all wells covered by the leak detection standards, and at those wells in states without any state-level leak detection program:

EDF has mapped wells that have been drilled or completed since September of 2015 and so would be covered by these vital clean air standards – see the searchable, interactive database here to find the wells in your community.

Dr. Lyon’s analysis likely understates the true impact of Administrator Pruitt’s suspension.

For example, Wyoming’s standards only apply in the Upper Green River Basin, and not state-wide. In addition, some states excluded by the analysis have strong state-level leak detection programs, but others – including Utah and Pennsylvania – are substantially weaker than EPA’s. In those areas, the EPA standards would have had meaningful additional benefits, if allowed to take effect.

Also, though based on the most recently available data, most states lack drilling and completion information from the last several months. And right now Baker Hughes reports that there are more than 900 active drill rigs across the country drilling new wells – none of which would be subject to EPA’s leak detection and repair requirements while Administrator Pruitt’s suspension is in effect.

These sources emit harmful air pollution

Ultimately, EPA’s suspension will result in communities across the country facing additional harmful pollution from the oil and gas sector.

EDF Senior Health Scientist Dr. Elena Craft provided information on the impacts of smog-forming and hazardous air pollution.

Ground-level ozone, more commonly known as smog, forms when volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides mix in the presence of sunlight. The result is a harmful air pollutant that can have acute respiratory effects and serious cardiovascular impacts. The summer months are often when smog is at its worst.

Dr. Craft found that more than 1,800 wells that will now be allowed to continue emitting smog-forming pollution are located in areas of the country that violate the health-based 2008 smog standards.

During  the 2016 smog season, counties with wells that would be required to detect and repair their leaks but for Administrator Pruitt’s suspension had 7,832 moderate days (yellow flag warning), 549 days deemed unhealthy for sensitive groups (orange flag warning), 94 unhealthy days (red flag warning), and six very unhealthy and hazardous days (purple flag warning).

Administrator Pruitt’s suspension, if it’s allowed to stand, lets these and other sources continue emitting smog-forming pollution unabated during – at minimum – the months of June, July, and August. Those are the very months when smog is at its worst and communities are most susceptible to its harmful health effect.

EDF climate scientist Dr. Ilissa Ocko provided information about the harmful effects of additional climate-destabilizing methane emissions from these sources.

Methane is a powerful near-term climate forcer and, through its formation of tropospheric ozone, also contributes to ground-level ozone pollution.

During the time these additional methane emissions remain in the atmosphere, they will have the same 20-year climate impact as more than 300,000 cars driving for one year, or more than 1.5 billion pounds of coal burned.

Once in the atmosphere, there is no available mechanism to remove this climate pollution or reverse its disruptive effects.

Administrator Pruitt’s notice suspending the leak detection and repair requirements doesn’t take any of these impacts into account.

Leak detection standards are common sense and highly cost-effective

In our legal filing today [PDF], we also document the reasonable and highly cost-effective nature of the leak detection standards to underscore the feasibility of allowing the standards to take effect as planned.

The 2016 standards gave operators a year to plan for and complete their initial inspection —time that was provided at the express request of many oil and gas operators.

Many companies are already effectively complying with similar standards in states like Colorado, Wyoming, and California.

Ultimately, as set forth in an analysis by EDF economists Jonathan Camuzeaux and Dr. Kristina Mohlin, the costs of doing common sense leak detection and repair are small. For instance, there are companies that provide these services for $250 per well site. This is a tiny fraction of the average annual revenue produced by the wells covered by Administrator Pruitt’s suspension, which our economists estimate to be approximately $3 million. It’s also negligible when compared to the substantial investment that operators make to drill a new well, which ranges from $4 to $8 million.

There is simply no reason to suspend or rescind leak detection and repair standards on the basis of cost concerns.

The legal basis for EPA’s suspension is unsound

The Clean Air Act provision that Administrator Pruitt relied on to suspend the standards enables EPA to reconsider aspects of rules when parties have not had an opportunity to comment on an issue during rulemaking. That may happen because new data becomes available later, or because an issue is first presented in a final rule.

Only when EPA identifies an issue that meets these criteria does it have the authority to temporarily suspend requirements while it undertakes a reconsideration.

But, as even the American Petroleum Institute recognized in filings with EPA, neither of the issues which EPA has identified for reconsideration meet this legal standard.

In fact, both issues were raised in the proposed rule and extensively addressed in comments to EPA by industry and other parties before the rule was finalized.

Administrator Pruitt’s suspension appears to be clearly pretextual – using flimsy bases for reconsideration as an excuse for wholesale rollbacks of climate and health protections.

This unprecedented and unlawful action by Administrator Pruitt will have clear and immediate public health impacts on communities all over the country that are near oil and gas development – impacts that the Administrator didn’t bother to identify, much less consider.

The suspension of these standards represents another dangerous and unlawful handout from Administrator Pruitt to the oil and gas industry, to the detriment of millions of American with a right to clean, healthy air, and a safer climate.

 

By Peter Zalzal

Today, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt officially suspended vital air pollution safeguards that will reduce harmful methane, smog-forming volatile organic compounds and toxic air pollutants like benzene from new and modified sources in the oil and natural gas sector – a move that puts the health and safety of Americans across the country at risk.

EDF, together with a coalition of environmental groups, filed a legal challenge and an emergency motion as soon as the suspension was published.

Our brief asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to immediately block Administrator Pruitt’s dangerous action from taking effect.

Suspending the standards threatens the health and welfare of Americans who live in close proximity to oil and gas development by allowing thousands of tons of these harmful air pollutants to be emitted into the atmosphere.

Each day this unlawful suspension is in place, the harm is compounded – more new wells are drilled, and other wells subject to the standards are allowed to continue emitting harmful pollution which cannot later be removed from the air.

Administrator Pruitt didn’t bother to identify these impacts before suspending these vital safeguards, nor did he take public input on this action.

Here’s more information on the suspension, and why we felt it was so important to take emergency legal action:

Administrator Pruitt’s actions show an intent to permanently strip away vital health protections

Last year – after years of deliberation and extensive public input – EPA issued long-overdue nationwide standards that require new and modified oil and gas facilities to curb emissions of methane and other harmful pollutants using proven, cost-effective best practices and technologies.

On April 18th, Administrator Pruitt sent a letter to several large oil and gas trade associations notifying them that he would reconsider parts of those standards.

In particular, Administrator Pruitt targeted the leak detection and repair provisions of the rule —requirements that operators inspect for gas leaks at their sites using readily-available technologies like infrared cameras, and then repair any leaks in a timely manner.

These protections against leaks are the cornerstone of EPA’s standards, accounting for up to 45 percent of their entire projected reductions of smog-forming volatile organic compounds, more than 50 percent of their reductions of methane pollution, and approximately 90 percent of their reductions of toxic air pollution.

Administrator Pruitt also alerted the oil and gas trade associations that he would suspend the leak detection and repair standards for 90 days, purportedly while EPA was looking at these provisions.

Then, just a few days before June 3, 2017 — the date by which operators would have had to complete their first inspection — Administrator Pruitt announced that he would issue today’s notice suspending the leak detection and repair standards in their entirety.

That notice was short on details, but did include two important pieces of information that reveal Pruitt’s true intent:

First, it states that EPA will “look broadly at the entire 2016 Rule.”

Second, it invokes the recent executive order which, among other things, directed EPA to “suspend, revise, or rescind” these 2016 standards.

Couple that with the fact that EPA has simultaneously sent to the Office and Management and Budget a proposal to extend, for an indeterminate period, the 90-day stay, and it’s pretty clear what Pruitt’s plans are – to permanently strip away standards designed to protect millions of Americans from harmful oil and gas pollution.

Thousands of polluters avoid taking common sense actions to find and fix leaks

Entirely absent from Administrator Pruitt’s notice today was any attempt to analyze or understand the impacts his suspension of these protections would have on the tens of thousands of Americans who stood to benefit from their implementation.

To support our request to the D.C. Circuit [PDF] to block Administrator Pruitt’s suspension, we did look at the impacts Americans would face – and they are serious.

Analyzing data from a widely-used database of oil and gas wells, EDF scientist Dr. David Lyon determined that more than 18,000 wells across the nation – all of them built or modified since September 2015 – will no longer be required to find and fix leaks during the current suspension.

Of these, more than 11,000 are located in states without any leak detection and repair standards of their own — meaning that, because of Administrator Pruitt’s action, these sources would entirely avoid leak inspection requirements and be free to continue emitting pollution unabated.

If the suspension stands, Dr. Lyon estimates that during the next three months these sources will emit up to an additional 17,000 tons of methane, 4,700 tons of smog-forming volatile organic compounds, and 181 tons of hazardous air pollutants.

Here’s a look at all wells covered by the leak detection standards, and at those wells in states without any state-level leak detection program:

EDF has mapped wells that have been drilled or completed since September of 2015 and so would be covered by these vital clean air standards – see the searchable, interactive database here to find the wells in your community.

Dr. Lyon’s analysis likely understates the true impact of Administrator Pruitt’s suspension.

For example, Wyoming’s standards only apply in the Upper Green River Basin, and not state-wide. In addition, some states excluded by the analysis have strong state-level leak detection programs, but others – including Utah and Pennsylvania – are substantially weaker than EPA’s. In those areas, the EPA standards would have had meaningful additional benefits, if allowed to take effect.

Also, though based on the most recently available data, most states lack drilling and completion information from the last several months. And right now Baker Hughes reports that there are more than 900 active drill rigs across the country drilling new wells – none of which would be subject to EPA’s leak detection and repair requirements while Administrator Pruitt’s suspension is in effect.

These sources emit harmful air pollution

Ultimately, EPA’s suspension will result in communities across the country facing additional harmful pollution from the oil and gas sector.

EDF Senior Health Scientist Dr. Elena Craft provided information on the impacts of smog-forming and hazardous air pollution.

Ground-level ozone, more commonly known as smog, forms when volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides mix in the presence of sunlight. The result is a harmful air pollutant that can have acute respiratory effects and serious cardiovascular impacts. The summer months are often when smog is at its worst.

Dr. Craft found that more than 1,800 wells that will now be allowed to continue emitting smog-forming pollution are located in areas of the country that violate the health-based 2008 smog standards.

During  the 2016 smog season, counties with wells that would be required to detect and repair their leaks but for Administrator Pruitt’s suspension had 7,832 moderate days (yellow flag warning), 549 days deemed unhealthy for sensitive groups (orange flag warning), 94 unhealthy days (red flag warning), and six very unhealthy and hazardous days (purple flag warning).

Administrator Pruitt’s suspension, if it’s allowed to stand, lets these and other sources continue emitting smog-forming pollution unabated during – at minimum – the months of June, July, and August. Those are the very months when smog is at its worst and communities are most susceptible to its harmful health effect.

EDF climate scientist Dr. Ilissa Ocko provided information about the harmful effects of additional climate-destabilizing methane emissions from these sources.

Methane is a powerful near-term climate forcer and, through its formation of tropospheric ozone, also contributes to ground-level ozone pollution.

During the time these additional methane emissions remain in the atmosphere, they will have the same 20-year climate impact as more than 300,000 cars driving for one year, or more than 1.5 billion pounds of coal burned.

Once in the atmosphere, there is no available mechanism to remove this climate pollution or reverse its disruptive effects.

Administrator Pruitt’s notice suspending the leak detection and repair requirements doesn’t take any of these impacts into account.

Leak detection standards are common sense and highly cost-effective

In our legal filing today [PDF], we also document the reasonable and highly cost-effective nature of the leak detection standards to underscore the feasibility of allowing the standards to take effect as planned.

The 2016 standards gave operators a year to plan for and complete their initial inspection —time that was provided at the express request of many oil and gas operators.

Many companies are already effectively complying with similar standards in states like Colorado, Wyoming, and California.

Ultimately, as set forth in an analysis by EDF economists Jonathan Camuzeaux and Dr. Kristina Mohlin, the costs of doing common sense leak detection and repair are small. For instance, there are companies that provide these services for $250 per well site. This is a tiny fraction of the average annual revenue produced by the wells covered by Administrator Pruitt’s suspension, which our economists estimate to be approximately $3 million. It’s also negligible when compared to the substantial investment that operators make to drill a new well, which ranges from $4 to $8 million.

There is simply no reason to suspend or rescind leak detection and repair standards on the basis of cost concerns.

The legal basis for EPA’s suspension is unsound

The Clean Air Act provision that Administrator Pruitt relied on to suspend the standards enables EPA to reconsider aspects of rules when parties have not had an opportunity to comment on an issue during rulemaking. That may happen because new data becomes available later, or because an issue is first presented in a final rule.

Only when EPA identifies an issue that meets these criteria does it have the authority to temporarily suspend requirements while it undertakes a reconsideration.

But, as even the American Petroleum Institute recognized in filings with EPA, neither of the issues which EPA has identified for reconsideration meet this legal standard.

In fact, both issues were raised in the proposed rule and extensively addressed in comments to EPA by industry and other parties before the rule was finalized.

Administrator Pruitt’s suspension appears to be clearly pretextual – using flimsy bases for reconsideration as an excuse for wholesale rollbacks of climate and health protections.

This unprecedented and unlawful action by Administrator Pruitt will have clear and immediate public health impacts on communities all over the country that are near oil and gas development – impacts that the Administrator didn’t bother to identify, much less consider.

The suspension of these standards represents another dangerous and unlawful handout from Administrator Pruitt to the oil and gas industry, to the detriment of millions of American with a right to clean, healthy air, and a safer climate.

 

By Peter Zalzal

Today, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt officially suspended vital air pollution safeguards that will reduce harmful methane, smog-forming volatile organic compounds and toxic air pollutants like benzene from new and modified sources in the oil and natural gas sector – a move that puts the health and safety of Americans across the country at risk.

EDF, together with a coalition of environmental groups, filed a legal challenge and an emergency motion as soon as the suspension was published.

Our brief asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to immediately block Administrator Pruitt’s dangerous action from taking effect.

Suspending the standards threatens the health and welfare of Americans who live in close proximity to oil and gas development by allowing thousands of tons of these harmful air pollutants to be emitted into the atmosphere.

Each day this unlawful suspension is in place, the harm is compounded – more new wells are drilled, and other wells subject to the standards are allowed to continue emitting harmful pollution which cannot later be removed from the air.

Administrator Pruitt didn’t bother to identify these impacts before suspending these vital safeguards, nor did he take public input on this action.

Here’s more information on the suspension, and why we felt it was so important to take emergency legal action:

Administrator Pruitt’s actions show an intent to permanently strip away vital health protections

Last year – after years of deliberation and extensive public input – EPA issued long-overdue nationwide standards that require new and modified oil and gas facilities to curb emissions of methane and other harmful pollutants using proven, cost-effective best practices and technologies.

On April 18th, Administrator Pruitt sent a letter to several large oil and gas trade associations notifying them that he would reconsider parts of those standards.

In particular, Administrator Pruitt targeted the leak detection and repair provisions of the rule —requirements that operators inspect for gas leaks at their sites using readily-available technologies like infrared cameras, and then repair any leaks in a timely manner.

These protections against leaks are the cornerstone of EPA’s standards, accounting for up to 45 percent of their entire projected reductions of smog-forming volatile organic compounds, more than 50 percent of their reductions of methane pollution, and approximately 90 percent of their reductions of toxic air pollution.

Administrator Pruitt also alerted the oil and gas trade associations that he would suspend the leak detection and repair standards for 90 days, purportedly while EPA was looking at these provisions.

Then, just a few days before June 3, 2017 — the date by which operators would have had to complete their first inspection — Administrator Pruitt announced that he would issue today’s notice suspending the leak detection and repair standards in their entirety.

That notice was short on details, but did include two important pieces of information that reveal Pruitt’s true intent:

First, it states that EPA will “look broadly at the entire 2016 Rule.”

Second, it invokes the recent executive order which, among other things, directed EPA to “suspend, revise, or rescind” these 2016 standards.

Couple that with the fact that EPA has simultaneously sent to the Office and Management and Budget a proposal to extend, for an indeterminate period, the 90-day stay, and it’s pretty clear what Pruitt’s plans are – to permanently strip away standards designed to protect millions of Americans from harmful oil and gas pollution.

Thousands of polluters avoid taking common sense actions to find and fix leaks

Entirely absent from Administrator Pruitt’s notice today was any attempt to analyze or understand the impacts his suspension of these protections would have on the tens of thousands of Americans who stood to benefit from their implementation.

To support our request to the D.C. Circuit [PDF] to block Administrator Pruitt’s suspension, we did look at the impacts Americans would face – and they are serious.

Analyzing data from a widely-used database of oil and gas wells, EDF scientist Dr. David Lyon determined that more than 18,000 wells across the nation – all of them built or modified since September 2015 – will no longer be required to find and fix leaks during the current suspension.

Of these, more than 11,000 are located in states without any leak detection and repair standards of their own — meaning that, because of Administrator Pruitt’s action, these sources would entirely avoid leak inspection requirements and be free to continue emitting pollution unabated.

If the suspension stands, Dr. Lyon estimates that during the next three months these sources will emit up to an additional 17,000 tons of methane, 4,700 tons of smog-forming volatile organic compounds, and 181 tons of hazardous air pollutants.

Here’s a look at all wells covered by the leak detection standards, and at those wells in states without any state-level leak detection program:

EDF has mapped wells that have been drilled or completed since September of 2015 and so would be covered by these vital clean air standards – see the searchable, interactive database here to find the wells in your community.

Dr. Lyon’s analysis likely understates the true impact of Administrator Pruitt’s suspension.

For example, Wyoming’s standards only apply in the Upper Green River Basin, and not state-wide. In addition, some states excluded by the analysis have strong state-level leak detection programs, but others – including Utah and Pennsylvania – are substantially weaker than EPA’s. In those areas, the EPA standards would have had meaningful additional benefits, if allowed to take effect.

Also, though based on the most recently available data, most states lack drilling and completion information from the last several months. And right now Baker Hughes reports that there are more than 900 active drill rigs across the country drilling new wells – none of which would be subject to EPA’s leak detection and repair requirements while Administrator Pruitt’s suspension is in effect.

These sources emit harmful air pollution

Ultimately, EPA’s suspension will result in communities across the country facing additional harmful pollution from the oil and gas sector.

EDF Senior Health Scientist Dr. Elena Craft provided information on the impacts of smog-forming and hazardous air pollution.

Ground-level ozone, more commonly known as smog, forms when volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides mix in the presence of sunlight. The result is a harmful air pollutant that can have acute respiratory effects and serious cardiovascular impacts. The summer months are often when smog is at its worst.

Dr. Craft found that more than 1,800 wells that will now be allowed to continue emitting smog-forming pollution are located in areas of the country that violate the health-based 2008 smog standards.

During  the 2016 smog season, counties with wells that would be required to detect and repair their leaks but for Administrator Pruitt’s suspension had 7,832 moderate days (yellow flag warning), 549 days deemed unhealthy for sensitive groups (orange flag warning), 94 unhealthy days (red flag warning), and six very unhealthy and hazardous days (purple flag warning).

Administrator Pruitt’s suspension, if it’s allowed to stand, lets these and other sources continue emitting smog-forming pollution unabated during – at minimum – the months of June, July, and August. Those are the very months when smog is at its worst and communities are most susceptible to its harmful health effect.

EDF climate scientist Dr. Ilissa Ocko provided information about the harmful effects of additional climate-destabilizing methane emissions from these sources.

Methane is a powerful near-term climate forcer and, through its formation of tropospheric ozone, also contributes to ground-level ozone pollution.

During the time these additional methane emissions remain in the atmosphere, they will have the same 20-year climate impact as more than 300,000 cars driving for one year, or more than 1.5 billion pounds of coal burned.

Once in the atmosphere, there is no available mechanism to remove this climate pollution or reverse its disruptive effects.

Administrator Pruitt’s notice suspending the leak detection and repair requirements doesn’t take any of these impacts into account.

Leak detection standards are common sense and highly cost-effective

In our legal filing today [PDF], we also document the reasonable and highly cost-effective nature of the leak detection standards to underscore the feasibility of allowing the standards to take effect as planned.

The 2016 standards gave operators a year to plan for and complete their initial inspection —time that was provided at the express request of many oil and gas operators.

Many companies are already effectively complying with similar standards in states like Colorado, Wyoming, and California.

Ultimately, as set forth in an analysis by EDF economists Jonathan Camuzeaux and Dr. Kristina Mohlin, the costs of doing common sense leak detection and repair are small. For instance, there are companies that provide these services for $250 per well site. This is a tiny fraction of the average annual revenue produced by the wells covered by Administrator Pruitt’s suspension, which our economists estimate to be approximately $3 million. It’s also negligible when compared to the substantial investment that operators make to drill a new well, which ranges from $4 to $8 million.

There is simply no reason to suspend or rescind leak detection and repair standards on the basis of cost concerns.

The legal basis for EPA’s suspension is unsound

The Clean Air Act provision that Administrator Pruitt relied on to suspend the standards enables EPA to reconsider aspects of rules when parties have not had an opportunity to comment on an issue during rulemaking. That may happen because new data becomes available later, or because an issue is first presented in a final rule.

Only when EPA identifies an issue that meets these criteria does it have the authority to temporarily suspend requirements while it undertakes a reconsideration.

But, as even the American Petroleum Institute recognized in filings with EPA, neither of the issues which EPA has identified for reconsideration meet this legal standard.

In fact, both issues were raised in the proposed rule and extensively addressed in comments to EPA by industry and other parties before the rule was finalized.

Administrator Pruitt’s suspension appears to be clearly pretextual – using flimsy bases for reconsideration as an excuse for wholesale rollbacks of climate and health protections.

This unprecedented and unlawful action by Administrator Pruitt will have clear and immediate public health impacts on communities all over the country that are near oil and gas development – impacts that the Administrator didn’t bother to identify, much less consider.

The suspension of these standards represents another dangerous and unlawful handout from Administrator Pruitt to the oil and gas industry, to the detriment of millions of American with a right to clean, healthy air, and a safer climate.

 

He has officially suspended vital air pollution safeguards that protect Americans from dangerous methane, smog-forming volatile organic compounds, and toxic and carcinogenic air pollutants like benzene.