Federal Agencies to Improve Coordination to Support Energy Development and Safeguard Air Quality (HQ)
WASHINGTON – In keeping with President Obama’s
strategy to expand domestic oil and gas production safely and
responsibly, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), the U.S.
Department of the Interior (DOI), and the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) today released an interagency approach to
address air quality issues associated with onshore oil and gas
development on public lands.
A new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) establishes a common
process for the agencies to follow in analyzing the potential air
quality impacts of proposed oil and gas activities on federally
managed public lands. The collaborative approach established in the
MOU will increase efficiency, certainty and transparency in the
process - benefitting industry, federal agencies, states, and
Tribes.
“Today’s agreement will align federal agencies so that
oil and natural gas development in the United States is achieved in
a way that also protects important environmental resources,”
said EPA Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe. “Working with
our federal partners, we are committed to delivering an
environmental review process that is both transparent and
comprehensive, supporting responsible domestic energy production on
federal lands while ensuring environmental protection."
“This agreement is an important step forward for our
nation’s energy security,” said Deputy Secretary of the
Interior David J. Hayes. “This agreement helps
institutionalize the type of collaborative effort that created a
path forward for the Greater Natural Buttes gas project in Utah and
that encouraged the use of best practices and sensible air
pollution control technologies. We want to build on lessons learned
to establish clearer lines of communication and a predictable,
common sense process for ensuring prompt and thorough reviews of
proposed oil and gas projects.”
“This agreement ensures we do not
have to sacrifice clean air in our communities nor our protected
public landscapes when oil and gas development occurs,” said
Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan. “This is a
good example of what the President called for in his State of the
Union address to find creative and innovative ways for government
to work better together.”
Previously, federal agencies responsible for land management and
air quality reviews associated with oil and gas development made
decisions based on individual agency protocols. Agencies used
different approaches when determining the adequacy of air quality
analyses and mitigation; the stage in oil and gas
activities—planning, leasing, or permitting—when air
quality analyses should occur; and the appropriate thresholds and
resource conditions to use as the starting point for analyzing
impacts to visibility and other air quality related values
(AQRVs). These
differences often resulted in project delays.
To alleviate these delays and improve interagency coordination, the
Bureau of Land Management (BLM), EPA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, the National Park Service, and the USDA Forest Service
worked to establish mutually acceptable procedures for conducting
air quality analyses as part of the environmental review required
by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA requires all
federal agencies to evaluate and disclose the potential
environmental impacts of their proposed actions in a public
process.
Today’s agreement builds upon the
best practices applied in a recent successful interagency
collaboration on a major natural gas development project in Utah.
The Greater Natural Buttes Area Gas Development Project had been
delayed, in part, over concerns about its potential impacts on air
quality in the Uintah Basin, which has seen some of the highest
winter time ozone levels in the
nation. Over the last several months, the
BLM and EPA worked closely with the project proponent to develop a
mitigation plan to significantly reduce the project’s
potential impacts, an important step forward for a project that
could include up to 3,675 new gas wells over 10 years and produce
more than 6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
The MOU outlines a number of steps the agencies will take to ensure
that federal laws protecting air quality, human health, and the
environment are balanced with the nation’s energy needs. The
agreement provides for early interagency consultation throughout
the NEPA process; common procedures for determining what type of
air quality analyses are appropriate and when air modeling is
necessary; specific provisions for analyzing and discussing impacts
to air quality and for mitigating such impacts; and a dispute
resolution process to facilitate timely resolution of differences
among agencies.
To view the MOU:
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/policies/nepa/index.html
More information about NEPA: http://epa.gov/compliance/nepa/index.html