The Environmental Protection Agency issued new rules Thursday to cut smog-forming ozone emissions from fracking.
The new rules, although nonbinding, are meant to help states reduce volatile organic compounds that are the building blocks of asthma-causing ozone by helping the states choose the best ways to cut the emissions from the oil and natural gas sector.
“This document does not impose any requirements on facilities in the oil and natural gas industry,” the EPA said. “It provides only recommendations for air agencies to consider in determining [control technologies].”
The oil and gas industry has made the U.S. a leading global producer of fossil fuels through the use of the controversial drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The technique uses water and sand to break up shale rock deep underground to release petroleum and natural gas deposits.
The oil industry, which is facing a number of new regulations to reduce methane emissions, wasn’t thrilled with the new guidelines. The industry’s leading trade group, the American Petroleum Institute, said there is little data to back up the use of the guidelines to reduce ozone pollution.
“Moving forward with these guidelines without robust data could impose unachievable emission reduction requirements on the industry, while adding potentially significant costs to the American economy, jobs, consumers and the environment,” said the group’s director of regulatory affairs, Howard Feldman.
He said air pollution has been reduced dramatically over the past 20 years and will continue to improve without the guidelines because of the EPA’s existing ozone reduction programs, which “are the most stringent ever” introduced.
Feldman also underscored that carbon emissions are at their lowest in 25 years, caused by the switch from coal to natural gas to provide the majority of the nation’s electricity.
He said rather than jump ahead and provide guidelines for reducing pollution from fracking wells, the EPA should wait to finish a survey of the oil and gas industry it is doing to better define what is, and is not, necessary, “and avoid the risks that acting on insufficient scientific data and conflicting guidelines could impose on the American public.”
