Challenge arises to US regulations for offshore oil and gas operations

Environmental groups are challenging US air quality regulations for offshore oil and gas development, saying the rules are outdated by several decades and in need of a refresh after a failed update attempt from former President Barack Obama’s administration.

The groups are targeting a final rule that the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) adopted in June 2020, when Republican Donald Trump still held the White House. The Trump administration rejected an Obama-era proposal from 2016 that would have changed how operators model their emissions totals and brought BOEM’s air quality standards in line with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requirements, among other things.

The Trump-era rules “kept in place outdated and ineffective regulations governing air pollution from offshore oil and gas operations that were promulgated in 1980”, the environmental groups argued in their suit.

“These regulations have failed to account for technological advances in air pollution control and industry practices and do not reflect current air quality standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,” the lawsuit said.

Earthjustice, an environmental law nonprofit, filed the lawsuit in the District of Columbia on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, Healthy Gulf, Oceana and Sierra Club.The groups want a federal judge to nullify the Trump-era final rule and order BOEM to issue new air quality regulations in line with current EPA standards.

Officials at the Department of the Interior, which oversees BOEM, declined to comment on the lawsuit.President Joe Biden recognises climate change as an issue, but his administration needs to take its efforts a step further in the offshore arena, the environmental groups said.

“While the Biden Administration has taken steps to regulate (greenhouse gas) emissions from onshore oil and gas sources, it has ignored the significant emissions resulting from offshore oil and gas development and production,” the lawsuit said.

Source:https://www.upstreamonline.com