WHITE HOUSE RELEASES FALL 2013 REGULATORY AGENDA

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Karen Frantz
GHG Monitor
12/06/13

The White House released its Fall 2013 Unified Agenda last week, with new rules from the Environmental Protection Agency governing greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing power plants still in the works and both listed as “other significant” priorities. The agenda notes that while there are no estimates regarding the costs and benefits of the rule for existing sources at this time, the EPA does “expect it to be a significant regulatory action with annual effects on the economy exceeding $100 million.” The expected deadline for the rule is listed as June 2015.

In total, the EPA lists 134 regulatory items, with just under half of those coming from the Office of Air and Radiation. Other rules on the agenda include some that deal with volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including a proposal to remove the existing special emission reporting requirements for t-Butyl Acetate—established in 2004 when it was not included in the definition of VOCs—because the requirements are considered to be “unnecessarily burdensome”; and another that would exclude benzotrifluoride from the list of compounds defined as VOCs. Others include a rule that would revise the Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems source category of the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule to correct technical errors, revise unclear provisions and address other issues; and another rule that would “address issues raised by petitioners following the final rule published on August 16, 2012, that were not addressed in the action ‘Oil and Natural Gas Sector: Reconsideration of Certain Provisions of New Source Performance Standards.’”