American Oil and Gas Reporter - January 2018 - 24

BLM Delays Venting And Flaring Rule
WASHINGTON-The U.S. Bureau of
Land Management in December appeared
to deliver the relief the oil and gas
industry was seeking from Obama-era
venting and flaring regulations when it
published a final rule temporarily suspending or delaying certain requirements
of its 2016 Waste Prevention, Production
Subject to Royalties and Resource Conservation rule.
That Dec. 8 action followed President
Donald Trump's Dec. 4 announcement
that he was shrinking the Bears Ears and
Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah. The following day, Interior
Secretary Ryan Zinke recommended
Trump modify the boundaries of two
more monuments and create three new
national monuments.
And on Dec. 18, the Environmental
Protection Agency took another step toward dismantling President Obama's
Clean Power Plan by announcing an advance notice of proposed rule making to
obtain public input on how best to rewrite
the regulation.
In one other federal regulatory development, published reports say, lawsuits
were filed on Dec. 4 by Earthjustice, the
Sierra Club and the American Lung Association, and on Dec. 5 by attorneys
general from 14 states and the District of
Columbia against EPA for missing a
deadline to designate noncompliant areas
of the country under the 70 parts per
billion National Ambient Air Quality
Standard for ozone adopted in October
2015.
EPA published a notice in June that it
would delay the 70 ppb designations
from Oct. 1, 2017, to Oct. 1, 2018, but in
August the agency announced it was
"moving forward" with the designations
(AOGR, September 2017, pg. 34). However, EPA also observed that the Clean
Air Act allowed one additional year to
gather sufficient information to support
the designations, which it might need "to
ensure designations are founded on sound
policy."
Reports say the states represented in
the attorneys general lawsuit are New
York, California, Connecticut, Illinois,
Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts,
Minnesota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode
Island, Vermont and Washington.
Venting And Flaring
Producer associations leading a legal
challenge to the BLM's venting and flaring
regulation cheered the Dec. 8 final rule.
"This action is a good step in providing
24 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

our member companies some much needed
certainty," states Independent Petroleum
Association of America President and
Chief Executive Officer Barry Russell.
"IPAA looks forward to working with the
agency as it moves forward in the rulemaking process to address waste prevention
while safeguarding American jobs and
ensuring continued economic growth."
Adds Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma, "In suspending
the rule, BLM has recognized it does not
have the statutory authority claimed by
the Obama administration. The notice
even quotes a federal judge's clear statement earlier this year that BLM attempted
to usurp the Clean Air Act authority of
the states and the EPA."
BLM released its final venting and
flaring regulation in November 2016, requiring producers to reduce by half
methane flared from wells on public and
tribal lands (AOGR, December 2016, pg.
32). IPAA and the Western Alliance immediately sued, and their lawsuit was
combined with a number of state challenges in the U.S. District Court for the
District of Wyoming.
On Oct. 27, IPAA and the Alliance
requested a preliminary injunction against
the rule's Jan. 17, 2018, compliance date
(AOGR, December 2017, pg. 15). Although
the rule became effective in January 2017,
compliance with many of its requirements
was not required until 2018.
In June, BLM attempted to postpone
those compliance dates until 2019, utilizing
Section 705 of the Administrative Procedure Act, but in October, the U.S. District
Court for the Northern District of California invalidated that effort (AOGR, November 2017, pg. 30). According to published reports, the Justice Department
appealed that ruling to the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Dec. 4.
Meanwhile, 17 environmental and
tribal groups returned to the northern
California district court on Dec. 19 to
challenge BLM's Dec. 8 final rule, according to a post on the Wilderness Society's website.
BLM issued a proposed rule on Oct.
5 to postpone implementing until Jan.
17, 2019, the portions of the rule that
had not yet been implemented, and to
suspend until Jan. 17, 2019, those portions
that already were in effect.
In its Federal Register notice of the
final rule delaying implementation, BLM
notes that it reviewed the rule as part of
Secretary Zinke's March 29 Order No.
3349, "American Energy Independence,"

which itself was a response to President
Trump's Executive Order 13783, "Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth."
During its review, BLM says it "determined that a temporary suspension or
delay of certain requirements avoids compliance cost on operators for requirements
that may be rescinded or significantly revised in the near future."
The agency notes that the regulatory
impact analysis performed on the original
rule estimated costs at $114 million-$279
million a year, which "many oil and gas
companies and trade associations have
argued . . . BLM underestimated."
Its Federal Register notice says BLM
"also wishes to avoid expending scarce
agency resources in implementation activities for such potentially transitory requirements."
Shrink National Monuments
President Trump traveled to Utah on
Dec. 4 to sign proclamations shrinking
the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. In doing so
he declared, "No one values the splendor
of Utah more than the people of Utah,
and no one knows better how to use it.
Families will hike and hunt on land they
have known for generations, and they
will preserve it for generations to come.
"The Antiquities Act does not give
the federal government unlimited power
to lock up millions of acres of land and
water, and it is time we ended this abusive
practice," Trump added. "Public lands
once again will be for public use."
Utah Governor Gary Herbert responded, "We are pleased that Utahans once
again have a voice in the process of determining appropriate uses of these public
lands that we love. By reducing these supersized monuments to a size consistent
with the intent of the law, new doors of
dialogue have opened that will allow
thoughtful, long-term protection."
President Obama established the Bears
Ears National Monument in December
2016, encompassing 1.353 million acres
in San Juan County, Ut. Trump's proclamation strips out 1.15 million acres (85
percent), and divides the remainder into
two monument units: Shash Jáa, consisting
of 129,980 acres; and Indian Creek, consisting of 71,896 acres, according to DOI.
President Clinton created the Grand
Staircase-Escalante National Monument
in September 1996, DOI observes. It consisted of 1.866 million acres in Kane and
Garfield counties, Ut. Trump's procla-

American Oil and Gas Reporter - January 2018

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