By Marc Campopiano and Samantha Seikkula

On June 22, 2016, President Obama signed a bill reauthorizing the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) oil and gas pipeline programs through 2019. Obama’s final stamp on the Protecting our Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety Act of 2016 (PIPES Act or Act) follows unanimous passage in both the House and Senate. In addition to reauthorizing PHMSA and its associated programs, the Act includes new mandates aimed at strengthening PHMSA’s existing safety procedures and programs.

Pipeline Safety After the completion of a PHMSA pipeline safety inspection, the Act requires the Comptroller General to submit reports to Congress regarding the integrity management programs for gas and hazardous liquid pipeline facilities.  The reports must include, among other requirements: an analysis of technical, operational, and economic feasibility regarding measures to enhance pipeline facility safety; an analysis of the pipeline facility features’ impact on safety; and a description of any challenges affecting Federal and State regulators in the oversight of pipeline facilities.

By Robert Wyman, Claudia O’Brien, Michael Carroll, Alicia Handy, Andrew Westgate and Samantha Seikkula

On May 12, 2016, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its final rules aimed at reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas industry, in support of the Obama Administration’s efforts to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 40 to 45 percent from 2012 levels by 2025. EPA introduced a suite of rules including New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) that will curb emissions of methane, smog-forming volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and hazardous air pollutants such as benzene from new oil and gas sources. The final NSPS will achieve greater methane reductions than estimated at proposal due to changes made in response to public comments. EPA also finalized the Source Determination Rule, which clarifies how EPA intends to aggregate onshore oil and natural gas emission sources for purposes of its Title V, Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD), and New Source Review (NSR) permitting programs.

We previously discussed discussed EPA’s draft proposal. This post summarizes the final NSPS and describes key revisions from the proposal, as well as the Source Determination Rule and information requests that were released.

Summary of NSPS

The final NSPS builds on EPA’s 2012 rules to curb emissions from new, reconstructed and modified processes and equipment, along with reducing VOC emissions from sources not originally covered

By Marc Campopiano, Andrea Hogan and Joshua Marnitz

On September 22, 2015, the White House, through the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), issued guidance to the heads of certain federal departments and agencies[1] (the Agencies) establishing metrics for the permitting and environmental review of infrastructure projects in the United States (the Guidance). The Guidance is intended to expand the use and reframe the purpose of the publicly accessible online Federal Infrastructure Permitting Dashboard (the Dashboard). To that end, the Guidance establishes a set of metrics to track permit and review timelines for certain infrastructure projects, and sets a schedule for collecting and posting that data to the Dashboard. It then outlines an approach for capturing and reporting the environmental and community impacts resulting from the federal permitting and review process.

The infrastructure projects covered by the Guidance include those projects in the following sectors: surface transportation (including all highway, rail, and transit projects); airport capital improvement projects; ports and waterways; water resource projects; renewable energy generation; electricity transmission; storm-water infrastructure; broadband internet; and pipelines (except those subject to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission oversight). The Guidance also provides that the Agencies can include other sectors, as appropriate.