November 05, 2007
Albuquerque Journal
By Jack King
Journal Staff Writer
New Mexico industries will be required to start reporting their greenhouse gas emissions, beginning in 2009, to the state Environment Department, under a rule recently ordered by the state Environment Improvement Board.
The rule, which includes oil and gas producers, mandates the most comprehensive reporting in the nation, said Jim Norton, director of the Environmental Protection Division of the Environment Department.
Wisconsin and New Jersey have greenhouse gas reporting rules, but they are narrower in scope. California has prepared a similar rule but has not yet adopted it, Norton said.
The rule requires industries that already report emissions of other air pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, to include greenhouse gas emissions in their reports.
It will allow a phasing in of the greenhouse gases being reported, starting with carbon dioxide, followed by methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. A schedule for the phase-in will be released next year, Norton said.
Industry representatives had differing reactions to the rule. Public Service Company of New Mexico spokeswoman Susan Sponar said PNM supports the new reporting requirements.
"PNM already reports the greenhouse gas emissions from our power plants to the Environmental Protection Agency. The only difference now will be that we will have to report the greenhouse gas emissions from our natural gas delivery operations to the state," she said.
But Bob Gallagher, president of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, said the industry was blindsided by the part of the rule that applies to emissions from small sources in the oil and gas industry, such as on-site generators and small natural-gas compressors at drilling sites.
"There are not even protocols for how you would measure emissions from small sources. The Environment Department staff presented a timetable for developing those protocols to the EIB, and they turned it down. They insisted the protocols be written now," he said.
Norton confirmed that, at the EIB"s direction, the department"s staff will require reports of emissions from small sources in the oil and gas industry a year earlier than originally planned, and that the staff will speed up its development of protocols for measuring those releases.
Both Sponar and Gallagher said that, for those sites that already report emissions, the new program should not add significant costs. Gallagher said it is unclear how much the program might cost small-source sites, because the protocols haven"t been developed.
Environment Department spokeswoman Marissa Stone said no one has filed an appeal of the rule.
Norton said current plans call for large industrial facilities to report their 2008 emissions of carbon dioxide in early 2009. In 2010, they will report 2009 emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, and, in 2011, they will report emissions of all six chemicals.
Smaller industries will have a slightly more extended reporting schedule, reporting 2009 carbon dioxide emissions in 2010, then 2010 carbon dioxide and methane emissions in 2011. As yet, no date has been set for when smaller industries will begin reporting emissions of all six chemicals, he said.
Norton added that the reports might eventually form the basis for a cap and trade system, under which industries could sell or trade permits for prescribed amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.
Gallagher blamed the EIB"s decision to speed up the reporting requirements for small oil and gas sources on testimony from what he called, "out-of-state, paid obstructionists." Among these, he said, were the Oil and Gas Accountability Project of Durango, Colo., and the Western Environmental Law Center, which has offices throughout the West.
"The oil and gas industry has been a willing participant in this process from the beginning, but it"s frustrating to sit at an EIB meeting and watch out-ofstate paid obstructionist groups attempt to affect how we live in New Mexico," Gallagher said.
Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, an attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center, who lives in Taos, said Gallagher was incorrect on two points.
"There are wellestablished quantification methodologies for nearly all oil and gas emissions. They"ve been established by the American Petroleum Institute. Also, everyone who was involved in this case lives in New Mexico," he said.
The rule is a result of a process started by Gov. Bill Richardson in 2005, when he formed an advisory group on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Norton said.
Richardson said, in a recent statement, that the reporting program is essential to the state"s effort to address climate change.
