The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to curb ozone pollution is just the first of many environmental rules the Obama administration plans to roll out in the coming months.
The moves are an attempt to have the rules in place before President Obama leaves office.
The Wednesday ozone announcement would require factories, refineries and other facilities to cut back on their emissions. It comes just after the EPA put off its announcement of the required blending volumes this year for the Renewable Fuel Standard, a delay sure to ignite a lobbying and political fracas next year as supporters defend it from changes or an outright repeal.
The Obama administration is also due to release an interagency strategy to reduce emissions of methane, a short-lived but potent greenhouse gas that is 25 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.
That strategy may include the EPA regulating the gas, which leaks during the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, process. Environmentalists say that even a small leak could erase the climate benefits of the natural gas it produces, though industry groups contend they have largely figured out how to manage the process.
Up next, though, is likely a new rule on how to store and handle coal ash, a byproduct of burning coal in electricity generation.
The EPA is expected to avoid defining coal ash as a “hazardous waste,” which industry groups said would have imposed significant costs, especially for the construction industry that uses it to build highways. But environmental groups want a strong standard, citing lax oversight in a 2009 coal ash spill at the Tennessee Valley Authority-run Kingston power plant and a February spill into the Dan River near Eden, N.C., at a Duke Energy-operated storage pond.
Also coming soon: a long-awaited final rule governing fracking on federal lands and a proposed rule for offshore drilling in the Arctic. The former would establish requirements for well integrity, reporting of chemicals used, and the water that flows back up during the fracking process. The latter would attempt to establish rules governing energy development in the Arctic.
The administration is delaying until February a proposed rule establishing requirements for the blowout preventers used to guard against offshore drilling spills. The Obama administration is undertaking the regulation in response to the 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill that killed 11. In the disaster, a blowout preventer failed to deploy and allowed about 4 million barrels of oil to spew into the Gulf.
The Interior Department also has punted on a proposed rule to tighten restrictions on strip mining, a controversial method that blasts mountain peaks to access coal seams. The stream buffer rule, which aims to protect waterways from sediment released in the practice, is now due for an April release.
