Orlin Wagner/AP Oil
field workers drill into the Gypsum Hills near Medicine Lodge, Kan., on
Feb. 21. The Environmental Protection Agency announced new rules
Wednesday to control the problem of air pollution coming from wells
being drilled by the booming oil and natural gas drilling industry.
The Environmental Protection Agency's
new air pollution rules
for the oil and gas industry may seem like odd timing, as President
Obama has been trying to deflect Republican criticism that he
overregulates energy industries. But the rules weren't the Obama
administration's idea.
Several years ago,
communities in Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming complained about air
pollution from natural gas booms in their local areas.
Jeremy
Nichols and his group, the WildEarth Guardians, decided to sue the EPA
to force the agency to clean up the drilling industry.
"The drilling has pushed smog levels in very rural areas to unbelievable highs, higher than Los Angeles," Nichols says.
The WildEarth Guardians prevailed, and the EPA set about making new rules.
Nichols
had no inkling that by the time the rules were done, the drilling boom
would have spread across the country, and energy regulations would shape
up into an issue for the presidential campaign.
I think EPA
pulled through in a big way here. I mean, this is going to have an
immediate effect of keeping toxic pollution out of the air that people
breathe.
- Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians
"Back in 2008, we wanted to solve this
distinctly Western problem, and in the meantime this issue became a
national issue," he says.
An engineering
technique called hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — sparked a
nationwide drilling bonanza. The EPA says all of that drilling sends
significant amounts of pollution into the air, contributing to smog and
making people sick. A lot of pollution and natural gas spew out of the
well while drillers are waiting to connect the gas stream to a pipeline.
Starting in 2015, gas companies will be required to capture that
pollution and wasted natural gas. In the meantime, companies will have
to burn it in a flare, which makes it less harmful.
Nichols is delighted.
"I
think EPA pulled through in a big way here," he says. "I mean, this is
going to have an immediate effect of keeping toxic pollution out of the
air that people breathe."
Gina McCarthy, who
heads the EPA's air-pollution programs, says the initiative will save
companies money because they will be able to sell natural gas that
they've been wasting.
"It saves precious
natural gas resources that otherwise would have been emitted into the
atmosphere," she says. "It reduces smog, it protects public health, and
it's certainly good for the environment."
This rule has a very large cost compared to the benefit.
- Kathleen Sgamma, Western Energy Alliance
McCarthy says it won't slow down the industry,
but that's not the story you'll get if you talk with Kathleen Sgamma, a
vice president of Western Energy Alliance, which represents drilling
companies in the West.
"This rule has a very large cost compared to the benefit," she says.
Sgamma
says gas drilling doesn't produce enough air pollution to be harmful.
So it doesn't make sense to make companies buy all the equipment and do
all the paperwork required by these rules. She says the initiative is
contrary to what the president has been saying about his commitment to
increasing domestic energy production.
"While
we hear some good rhetoric, we're still seeing an administration that
is making it more difficult and costly to develop natural gas," she
says.
That's just the point Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was making on the campaign trail earlier this month.
"This president has been an anti-energy president," he said.
Romney specifically criticized Obama for trying to overregulate fracking.
"The intent, of course, is to slow down the development of our own resources," he said.
The
boom is slowing down — because there's so much natural gas already on
the market and prices are at historic lows. One thing is for certain:
This issue will keep coming up all the way until Election Day.
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