Bureau of Ocean Energy Management April 2016 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

To comply with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is notifying the public that we have submitted an information collection request (ICR) to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval. This ICR concerns the paperwork requirements in the regulations under ``Renewable Energy and Alternate Uses of Existing Facilities on the Outer Continental Shelf.'' This notice provides the public a second opportunity to comment on the paperwork burden of this collection.

BOEM is announcing the dates, locations, and times of rescheduled meetings in Washington, DC; Houston, TX; and New Orleans, LA, to elicit comments on the OCS Oil and Gas Leasing Program 2017-2022 Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (Draft Programmatic EIS), which has been prepared by BOEM to support the Proposed OCS Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2017-2022 (2017-2022 Program).

This proposed rule would amend existing BOEM regulations related to air quality measurement, evaluation, and control with respect to oil, gas, and sulphur operations on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) of the United States (U.S.), in the Central and Western Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and the area offshore the North Slope Borough of the State of Alaska, as part of the BOEM approval process for offshore oil and gas exploration and development plans, right-of-use and easement (RUE), pipeline rights-of-way (ROW), and lease term pipeline applications. The proposed rule would: (1) Fulfill BOEM's statutory responsibility under section 5(a)(8) of Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) by addressing all relevant criteria and major precursor air pollutants and by cross-referencing BOEM standards and benchmarks for those pollutants to those of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA); (2) change the manner in which lessees would evaluate and model vessel emissions attributed to OCS facilities; (3) change the methods for measuring and evaluating air emissions including measuring their impacts over State submerged lands; (4) provide a process by which exemption thresholds are established and updated; (5) change the circumstances when emission reduction measure(s) (ERM), including Best Available Control Technology (BACT), are required, and establish new criteria for the application of ERM; (6) formalize requirements for the consolidation of emissions from multiple facilities; (7) consistent with BOEM's existing regulatory authority, articulate a schedule and requirements for ensuring that all plans, including those previously approved, will remain compliant on an ongoing basis with these updated regulations; and (8) include an air quality component in the submission of RUE, ROW, and lease term pipeline applications. Key policy changes include the following: (1) Aligning the list of pollutants that are subject to an air quality review with the current National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and cross-referencing the ambient air quality standards and benchmarks (AAQSB) for those pollutants to those of the USEPA; (2) formalizing the concept and application of the term ``attributed emissions;'' (3) changing the locations where air emissions will be measured and evaluated; and (4) modifying the process by which exemption thresholds are established and updated. This rulemaking would be the first major re-write of the OCS air quality regulations in 35 years.