Pennsylvania Now Tasked with Implementing New Federal Air Pollution Standards for Oil and Gas Facilities

WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 2, 2023) –  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized methane pollution standards for new and existing oil and gas facilities that include gas wells, compressor stations and storage tanks. These updated environmental regulations will increase required air pollution inspections at oil and gas facilities while requiring widely available control technologies that do not emit climate-warming methane gas directly to the atmosphere. Methane has 87 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 20-year time period.

Additionally, this rule will require reducing smog-causing volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions as well as air toxic emissions like the known carcinogen benzene. The rule will also include a Super-Emitter Response Program that will provide information regarding air pollution incidents, and their resolutions, to impacted communities. 

Joseph Otis Minott, Clean Air Council Executive Director and Chief Counsel issued the following statement: 

“President Biden and the EPA are taking meaningful action with rules that set a strong foundation for cutting methane pollution from new and existing oil and gas operations. We look forward to supporting Governor Shapiro in tailoring these rules to ensure they adequately address the concerns of Pennsylvania residents near gas operations. As the second largest producer of fossil gas in the country, Pennsylvania has an outsized responsibility to cut as much climate-warming methane emissions from the gas industry as possible and better protect the health of people living near oil and gas operations.”