Yesterday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) unveiled new regulations to clamp down on methane emissions and other other air pollution that allegedly comes from shale drilling sites. The onerous new regulations, not in effect yet (to be published “soon”) are prompted by bullying from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, an agency which is about to get gutted (see Master Stroke: Trump Selects OK AG Pruitt to Lead EPA). That doesn’t stop the Gov. Wolf’s DEP from plowing forward with new rules (copies below). As an interesting aside, MDN editor Jim Willis attended a conference yesterday in New York City where Harold Hamm, CEO of Continental Resources, said more methane leaks from the gas lines under New York City each day than from ALL oil and gas drilling activity across the country! Yet the Wolf DEP, with a plank sticking out of its eye (methane leaking like a sieve from major cities), is going after the sawdust in o&g’s eye (tiny bit of methane escapting at well sites). Go figure. To be fair, DEP’s new regs do more than just try to force every last molecule of methane to be “captured” (nasty fugitive molecules causing Mom Earth to toast)–DEP will also go after a reduction in some other types of air pollution, including VOCs (volatile organic compounds). But capturing fugitive methane in a vain attempt to combat mythical man-made global warming is the main thrust of the effort. Once the DEP publishes the new rules in the Pennsylvania Register, the industry (and radical environmentalists) will have 45 days to comment before the new rules magically become unlegislated laws…
