Final Rules for Prevailing Wage & Registered Apprenticeships at Clean Energy Projects - The Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently announced final rules implementing the prevailing wage and...more
The Biden-Harris Administration recently issued a suite of new rules aimed at addressing water and air quality, reducing methane emissions, protecting environmental justice communities, and accelerating the nation’s...more
On May 14, 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published the final Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule requirements for petroleum and natural gas systems under 40 C.F.R. Part 98, Subpart W in the Federal Register....more
After much anticipation, the Environmental Protection Agency issued its final rule this week aimed at cutting methane emissions as well as strengthening and updating greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) reporting for the oil and...more
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released proposed and final rules that will regulate methane emissions from oil and gas operations, implement a methane emissions tax, and change greenhouse gas reporting...more
PM NAAQS: Already behind schedule is perhaps the mostly widely impactful rule change EPA has proposed in many years: a lowering of the national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for fine particulate matter (PM2.5). EPA has...more
In recent years, the global concentration of methane present in the atmosphere has increased dramatically. In fact, in 2021, methane increased by almost 18 parts per billion in the atmosphere, the largest single year increase...more
The Situation: The Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") finalized regulations designed to reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas industry by 80% in coming years at both new and existing facilities. The regulations...more
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its final rule on Dec. 2, 2023, to sharply reduce emissions of methane and other air pollution from oil and natural gas operations. The final action, which is more than...more
On November 24, 2021, the EPA added natural gas processing (“NGP”) facilities to its list of facilities required to report information for inclusion in the Toxics Release Inventory (“TRI”). Created in 1986, the TRI is an...more
On November 2, 2021, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) issued a proposed rule that is intended to significantly reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (“GHGs”) and other air pollutants from the crude oil and...more
On October 4, 2017, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California held that the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) cannot postpone implementation of natural gas methane emission rules because such...more
EPA recently announced a 90-day stay for reconsideration of rules governing performance standards and emissions from Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Landfills. The final rules issued in July 2016 established new source...more
This week, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (DC Circuit) vacated the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 90-day stay of an Obama-era rule regulating methane emissions from oil and...more
Section 111 of the Clean Air Act (CAA) requires EPA to issue New Source Performance Standards (NSPSs) for certain source categories of air pollutants. These NSPSs set threshold limits on emissions of certain pollutants...more
Time to Pay More: EPA Increases Maximum Civil Penalties - Remember the days when the maximum civil penalty EPA could assess for a violation of environmental law was $25,000 per day? Those days disappeared 26 years ago...more
On May 12, 2016, EPA issued its final rule for reduction of methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. The rule, originally proposed in September 2015, builds on the 2012 new source performance standards that addressed...more
On May 12, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released final regulations (the Rules) aimed at reducing methane emissions from certain new and modified oil and gas facilities by 40% to 45% from 2012 levels by 2025....more
On May 12, 2016, EPA issued three final rules to reduce methane emissions from new, reconstructed, and modified sources in the oil and gas sector by 2025. These rules create significant new obligations to reduce emissions of...more
On May 12, 2016, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its final rules establishing – for the first time – limits on methane emissions. In addition to creating the new methane emissions standards, the amendments...more
Widely anticipated on both sides of the aisle, on May 12, 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) released final regulations to curb emissions of methane and volatile organic compounds (“VOC”) from additional...more
EPA Releases TSCA Assessment Documents For Flame Retardant Chemicals: On August 18, 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released for public comment three Problem Formulation and Initial Assessment documents...more