Environmental Protection Agency January 6, 2017 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In accordance with section 113(g) of the Clean Air Act, as amended (``CAA'' or the ``Act''), notice is hereby given of a proposed consent decree in Sierra Club v. McCarthy, Civil Action No. 1:16-cv- 01831-EGS (D. DC). On September 15, 2016, the Sierra Club filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging that Gina McCarthy, in her official capacity as Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (``EPA''), failed to perform a non-discretionary duty to grant or deny within 60 days a petition submitted by Sierra Club on May 3, 2016 requesting that EPA object to a CAA Title V permit issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (``PDEP'') for the Scrubgrass Generating Co., L.P. power plant (``Scrubgrass Plant''), located in Venango County, Pennsylvania. The proposed consent decree would establish a deadline for EPA to take such action.

EPA is proposing to add natural gas processing (NGP) facilities (also known as natural gas liquid extraction facilities) to the scope of the industrial sectors covered by the reporting requirements of section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), commonly known as the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and section 6607 of the Pollution Prevention Act (PPA). Adding these facilities would meaningfully increase the information available to the public on releases and other waste management of listed chemicals from the natural gas processing sector and further the purposes of EPCRA section 313. EPA estimates that at least 282 NGP facilities in the U.S. would meet the TRI employee threshold (10 full- time employees or equivalent) and manufacture, process, or otherwise use (threshold activities) at least one TRI-listed chemical in excess of applicable threshold quantities. NGP facilities in the U.S. manufacture, process, or otherwise use more than 21 different TRI- listed chemicals, including n-hexane, hydrogen sulfide, toluene, benzene, xylene, and methanol. EPA expects that TRI reporting by U.S. NGP facilities would provide significant release and waste management data on these chemicals to the public.