Aggregation of air emissions has become a hot topic for the oil and gas industry and continues to be a moving target as exemplified by a key federal appeals court decision issued just last month. Hiscock & Barclay recently hosted a webinar discussing this important topic. The presentation began with an overview of the issue, including the pertinent regulatory provisions and what it means in terms of the permitting of oil and gas facilities under the Clean Air Act. It then detailed the relatively recent regulatory evolution of the issue, starting with the 2007 Wehrum Memorandum issued by the EPA, which focused on physical proximity to define adjacency, continuing with the 2009 withdrawal of the Wehrum Memorandum, which reversed course and focused on the concept of functional relatedness to define adjacency, and then, the Sixth Circuit’s decision in Summit Petroleum wherein the court found that the term “adjacent” refers only to physical proximity and that the EPA inappropriately defined it to include an assessment of the functional relationship between activities. Finally, the presentation addressed the EPA’s response to the Summit decision (the Summit Directive), the recent court case vacating the Summit Directive and provided a detailed look at how aggregation is being addressed in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia as well as how it may be handled in New York.
You can access a copy of the presentation at http://marketing.hblaw.com/files/Uploads/Documents/Webinar_Aggregation_Presentation_6-25-14.pdf.
To view a recording of the webinar click here.