DEP Issues New Air Quality Guidelines

The Department of Environmental Protection has issued new guidelines for regulating air pollution caused by natural gas drillers, according to the Wilkes-Barre Citizens’ Voice.

The department’s new guidelines for “single source” or “air aggregation” decisions reflect a narrowing of the federal government’s common reading of the rule, which holds that sources of air pollution from oil and gas operations should be considered together when they are “interdependent,” or linked by pipelines or other infrastructure.
DEP Secretary Michael Krancer said in a statement Wednesday that Pennsylvania will apply instead a “common-sense” reading of the rule, which requires that separate sources must meet three tests to be aggregated: belong to the same industrial grouping, be located on one or more contiguous or adjacent properties and be under the control of the same person.
“Over time, there was a tendency by some regulators to morph the meaning of ‘contiguous’ or ‘adjacent’ properties to mean only that operations on the properties be ‘interdependent,'” Krancer said, adding that “this view has been expressed in various federal Environmental Protection Agency recommendation letters or policy statements in recent years.”
“That interpretation is not supported” by the language of the regulations and case law, he said.

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