Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule: Revisions and Confidentiality Determinations for Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems; Correction

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 98</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OAR-2023-0234; FRL-10246-03-OAR]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2060-AV49</RIN> <SUBJECT>Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule: Revisions and Confidentiality Determinations for Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems; Correction</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule; correction and correcting amendments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is correcting a final rule published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on May 14, 2024. The final rule amended requirements that apply to the petroleum and natural gas systems source category of the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule to ensure that reporting is based on empirical data, accurately reflects total methane emissions and waste emissions from applicable facilities and allows owners and operators of applicable facilities to submit empirical emissions data that appropriately demonstrate the extent to which a charge is owed under the Waste Emissions Charge. This document corrects inadvertent errors introduced in preparing the amendatory regulatory text for the final rule or in preparing the signed final rule for publication. These corrections do not result in any substantive changes to the final rule. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The <E T="04">Federal Register</E> corrections, numbers 1.a through 1.ff and 2.a through 2.q, are effective January 1, 2025. The correcting amendments in instructions 2 and 3, correcting §§ 98.233 and 98.236, respectively, are effective October 4, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2023-0234. Publicly available docket materials are available either electronically at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> or in hard copy at Air and Radiation Docket and Information Center, EPA Docket Center, EPA/DC, EPA WJC West Building, 1301 Constitution Ave. NW, Room 3334, Washington, DC. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jennifer Bohman, Climate Change Division, Office of Atmospheric Protection (MC-6207A), Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20460; telephone number: (202) 343-9548; email address: <E T="03">GHGReporting@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> The EPA is correcting inadvertent errors in the regulatory text of the final rule as described in this section. These corrections are necessary to be consistent with the May 14, 2024 final rule (89 FR 42062) (hereafter referred to as the “final rule”), the redline-strikeout version of the final regulatory text in the docket for the final rule (hereinafter referred to as “final rule redline-strikeout”) (Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2023-0234-0459), and the preamble for the August 1, 2023 proposed rulemaking (88 FR 50282) (hereafter referred to as the “proposed rule”). Under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA)'s good cause exception, 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(B), it is unnecessary to take public comment on these technical, non-substantive corrections. The EPA is correcting 40 CFR 98.233(a)(2) to add “as applicable” after “well-pad site, gathering and boosting site, or facility” to clarify the reporting level. The “as applicable” language was used in the preamble to the final rule (89 FR 42107 and 42108, May 14, 2024), where the EPA discussed finalizing requirements for Calculation Method 2 in 40 CFR 98.233(a)(2) to allow reporters to measure the natural gas emissions from each pneumatic device vented directly to the atmosphere at the well-pad site, gathering and boosting site, or facility, as applicable. The “as applicable” phrase was also correctly included in the final rule redline-strikeout. The EPA is correcting 40 CFR 98.233(a)(2)(iii) and (c)(2)(ii) to remove the extraneous instance of “representative” from “measure the emissions under representative conditions representative of normal operations.” The corrected text reads “measure the emissions under conditions representative of normal operations.” This phrase was correct in 40 CFR 98.233(a)(2)(iii) and (c)(2)(ii) in the final rule redline-strikeout. The correct phrase (without the duplicate “representative”) also appears in the final amended regulation two times, in the versions of 40 CFR 98.233(a)(2)(iii) and (c)(2)(ii) that were effective on July 15, 2024 (89 FR 42224 and 42228, respectively, May 14, 2024). The EPA is correcting 40 CFR 98.233(a)(2)(v)(A)( <E T="03">2</E> ) to replace an incorrect cross-reference to “paragraph (a)(6) of this section” with the correct cross-reference to “paragraph (a)(7) of this section.” The EPA proposed to reference “paragraph (a)(6)” in the Proposed Rule, in which 40 CFR 98.233(a)(6) was “Type of natural gas pneumatic devices” (88 FR 50384, August 1, 2023). In the final amendments, the “Type of natural gas pneumatic devices” paragraph is 40 CFR 98.233(a)(7) (89 FR 42242, May 14, 2024). The cross-reference to “paragraph (a)(7) of this section” was correct in the final rule redline-strikeout. In addition, the correct paragraph reference appears in the version of 40 CFR 98.233(a)(2)(v)(A)(2) that became effective on July 15, 2024 (89 FR 42224, May 14, 2024). All other references to this section are correct. The EPA is correcting the version of 40 CFR 98.233(a)(3)(ii)(A) that became effective on July 15, 2024 (89 FR 42226, May 14, 2024) to replace an incomplete cross-reference to “§ 98.234(a)(1) through (3)” with the correct cross-reference to “§ 98.234(a)(1) through (3), (6), and (7).” The paragraphs that are cross-referenced in the final rule and the redline-strikeout version of the final regulatory text effective July 15, 2024 in the docket for the final rule (Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2023-0234-0460) correspond to the amended version of 40 CFR 98.234 that will be effective on January 1, 2025. However, the amendments to 40 CFR 98.234 that will be effective on January 1, 2025 consolidate current 40 CFR 98.234(a)(6) into 40 CFR 98.234(a)(1) and consolidate current 40 CFR 98.234(a)(7) into 40 CFR 98.234(a)(2). Therefore, the EPA is correcting the cross-referenced paragraphs in the version of 40 CFR 98.233(a)(3)(ii)(A) that became effective on July 15, 2024 so that all of the available methods are correctly referenced. The EPA is correcting 40 CFR 98.233(c)(1) to replace an incorrectly formatted cross-reference to “§ 98.234(b) of this subpart” with the correct cross-reference to “§ 98.234(b).” The cross reference as published does not follow the cross-reference requirements specified by the Office of the Federal Register. The cross-reference to “§ 98.234(b)” was correct in the final rule redline-strikeout. The EPA is correcting 40 CFR 98.233(d) to replace an incorrect cross-reference to “paragraphs (d)(5) through (11) of this section” with the correct cross-reference to “paragraphs (d)(5) through (12) of this section.” The EPA specified in both the preamble to the Proposed Rule (88 FR 50304, August 1, 2023) and the preamble to the final rule (89 FR 42091, May 14, 2024) that the emission calculation methodologies for nitrogen removal units are identical to the existing calculation methodologies in 40 CFR 98.233(d) for acid gas removal units (AGR). 40 CFR 98.233(d)(10) (revised to 40 CFR 98.233(12)) describes how to calculate mass emissions and is part of the existing calculation methods for AGRs. Per 40 CFR 98.236(a), reporters are required to report annual emissions totals, in metric tons of each GHG, for each applicable emission source. The final step in calculating mass emissions for AGRs and NRUs is specified in 40 CFR 98.233(d)(12) (existing 40 CFR 98.233(d)(10)) and is currently required by subpart W reporters with AGRs. The cross-reference to “paragraphs (d)(5) through (12) of this section” was correct in the final rule redline-strikeout. The EPA is correcting 40 CFR 98.233(e)(2) to restore the paragraph label “Calculation Method 2,” which was inadvertently omitted from the republished version of 40 CFR 98.233. There were edits to this paragraph in the final rule, but the removal of the paragraph label was not included in the signed final rule and instead this error was introduced in preparing the signed final rule for publication. The paragraph label was correct in the final rule redline-strikeout. The EPA is correcting 40 CFR 98.233(e) to add “or to other non-flare combustion units” after “routed to a regenerator firebox/fire tubes,” correcting 40 CFR 98.233(e)(4) to add “or other non-flare combustion unit” after “to a flare” and to replace the phrase “vapor recovery system or flare” with “vapor recovery system, flare, or other non-flare combustion unit,” correcting 40 CFR 98.233(e)(4)(iii) to replace “regenerator firebox/fire tubes” with “other non-flare combustion unit” and to replace the phrase “vapor recovery system or flare” with “vapor recovery system, flare, or other non-flare combustion unit,” and correcting 40 CFR 98.233(e)(5)(ii)(B) and (iv) to add “or other non-flare combustion unit” after “regenerator firebox/fire tubes.” These corrections are consistent with the preamble to the final rule (89 FR 42124, May 14, 2024), where we discussed our intent to finalize an amendment consistent with public comment to replace all proposed references to regenerator firebox/fire tubes in 40 CFR 98.236(e)(3) with references to non-flare combustion units, as commenters noted that desiccant dehydrators are not known to have configurations with regenerator firebox/fire tubes. The preamble to the final rule also described conforming changes in 40 CFR 98.233(e)(5) to specify procedures for calculating emissions from non-flare combustion units used with desiccant dehydrators that are the same as the procedures for calculating emissions from rege ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 76k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━