From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

The state Environmental Quality Board approved sweeping changes to rules for oil and gas drillers despite objections and concerns raised by several advisory committees and lawmakers.

The board’s members — led by Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Quigley — spent three hours in Harrisburg on Wednesday hearing from DEP staff defending the rules and critics questioning the process, timing and costs.

“If you have two advisory boards that you appointed saying don’t do it, or are lukewarm to this, why are we here?,” asked Sen. Gene Yaw, a Williamsport Republican who chairs the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee.

Quigley, who was appointed last year by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and oversaw changes in both the proposed rules and the makeup of those advisory boards, defended the package and the action. The board, which includes 11 state agency heads, five advisory council members and four lawmakers, approved the rules 15-4.

“These updated rules are long overdue and it’s time to get them across the finish line for the protection of public health, for industry certainty, and for the protection of our state’s environment,” he said.

The package of rules, which was five years in the making, seeks to better protect land and water around drilling sites. It updates regulations last revised in 2001, years before shale drilling made Pennsylvania the No. 2 natural gas producer in the country.

If enacted, the it will bring greater scrutiny of permits when drillers operate close to streams, schools and other resources; require drillers to search for surrounding wells; change methods of on-site storage of wastewater and other material; increase reporting requirements; and raise the standards to which drillers must restore water and land in case of spills and other accidents.

The Conventional Oil and Gas Advisory Committee, which Wolf formed last year to help review the rules, recommended against the board approving them based on concerns about costs and what it considers some overreach by the DEP. The DEP’s Technical Advisory Board asked for more guidance and for a reconsideration of some changes before board action.

The board shot down more than 15 proposed amendments by Yaw, Rep. John Maher and a staffer from Sen. John Yudichak’s office.

“I think we’ve got a real problem with the whole thing and it will disappear in the courts,” said Maher, an Upper St. Clair Republican who chairs the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee.

Industry groups have threatened to sue over how the department handled a legislative order in 2014 to separate rules for shale drillers from those regulating conventional, shallow wells. Legislation connected to failed budget bills also threatened to negate the rule package for the conventional industry.

Maher’s and Yaw’s committees can review the rule package before it goes to the Independent Regulatory Review Commission for final approval.

PIOGA statement

Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association President Louis D. D’Amico issued the following statement regarding adoption of the final oil and natural gas regulations (Chapter 78 and 78a) by the Environmental Quality Board:

“The four-year process of developing these regulations has been an exercise in deception, misinformation and disregard of the law by the Department of Environmental Protection that escalated under Gov. Wolf. DEP has offered no legitimate explanation for applying the provisions of Act 13 intended for the unconventional industry to conventional oil and gas producers.

“The Wolf administration’s blatant disregard of the law and lack of transparency was shown by the Governor’s not-publicly-announced dismissal of all the long-serving members of the Oil and Gas Technical Advisory Board about a month into his term. It was demonstrated again today by the EQB’s refusal to vote separately on the conventional and unconventional rulemakings as unquestionably required by Act 126 of 2014, and by the EQB’s rejection of amendments to correct technical deficiencies in the regulations, even after DEP admitted it intends to implement some regulations differently from what the provisions actually state.

“Like the Wolf administration’s persistent calls for a severance tax on an industry in a free fall from low commodity prices, these regulations will accomplish three things: send more hard-working people to the rolls of the unemployed, stifle energy production in Pennsylvania and reduce the amount of taxes paid to the Department of Revenue.”

See the Environmental Quality Board webpage for the proposed rule changes, along with reports from the Oil & Gas Technical Advisory Board and the Conventional Oil & Gas Advisory Committee.