From Wyoming, comes this story:
Companies that release carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and
other greenhouse gases are one step closer to being regulated by the
state.
On Friday the Senate Minerals Committee approved House Bill
63, which would transfer the regulation from the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency to the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality.
So, the process is moving along. Time will tell how it works out.
The EPA decided in 2011 to oversee permitting of large sources of
greenhouse gasses in states that had shown themselves unwilling or
unable to do so. Wyoming sued, protesting that the EPA hadn’t given the
state enough time to submit its plan to regulate such facilities. The
lawsuit is ongoing.
In the meantime, legislators on the Joint
Minerals Interim Committee and industry proceeded to design a process by
which the state — and not the federal government — would regulate the
emissions.
DEQ regulates other emissions from such facilities.
With the federal greenhouse standards, companies must deal with both EPA
regulators in Denver and state regulators.
“What you have is dual permitting,” said Todd Parfitt, director of DEQ.
DEQ
tried to work with EPA to deliver permits at the same time, but there
is no guarantee they can always work together, he said.
Again, the major component of greenhouses gases, water vapor, which composes 95 to 97 percent of greenhouse gases, is not regulated.
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