To support more-informed regulatory decision making, DOE facilitates dialogue among Federal officials, State regulators, industry personnel, and other stakeholders.

Through its program activities, DOE can provide assessments of costs or risks, lending an independent voice to the debate.

DOE also characterizes problems and possible alternative solutions, providing a catalyst and contributing to the process of achieving common-sense approaches.

Recent Successes
The Texas Electronic Compliance and Approval Process (ECAP) pilot project with the Texas Railroad Commission (TRC) assisted the State of Texas with developing an electronic oil and gas permitting system. The project provided two-way electronic communications for handling compliance aspects of oil and gas regulation. In September 2001, the pilot was implemented, providing the ability to file all types of drilling permits.

TRC estimates the savings per drilling permit at $200-400. The ECAP system was estimated to save the industry $3-6 million in 2001. By 2005 TRC estimated the annual savings for Texas would reach $70 million. Louisiana, New Mexico, and California were the first states to develop electronic permitting based on the ECAP and Risk-Based Data Management System (RBDMS) similar to that used in Texas. The RBDMS project, in cooperation with the Ground Water Protection Council (GWPC), developed a personal computer-based system for improved regulatory and resource management decisions. GWPC’s goal is to develop better ways to protect and conserve groundwater resources. RBDMS, currently used in 18 states, provides permitting data, wellbore schematics, GIS capability, Internet access, and electronic permitting and reporting that can be used for a variety of water, air, soil, remediation, and environmental permitting activities. The system is designed to coordinate with the Bureau of Land Management and the Minerals Management Service and thus eliminates duplicate permitting and reporting through data sharing.

Challenges
State regulators face numerous regulatory and environmental issues in the oil and gas producing states. Much work is needed to increase access to federal lands though development of consistent impact analysis methods. In the past, there was no guidance document for National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) compliance and Environmental Impact Statements, leaving industry at a loss to interpret the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) jargon and understand the regulations or where to find the necessary data to complete applications for permits. A program is needed that effectively will enable land management agencies to make faster and more comprehensive use of data to determine where increased access to federal lands is appropriate while maintaining a balance with environmental protection. The focus of the work will be in the Rocky Mountains and Alaska and is expected to leverage existing data, federal agencies, state agencies, and industry representatives to identify sites of interest for field studies.

A regulatory initiative is needed to improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of managing produced water from conventional oil and gas production in order to extend the productive life of wells—which increases the ultimate recoverable reserves—while providing improved environmental protection. One topic, for example, is the reclassification of produced-water brine, currently mandated for disposal in special Class II injection wells by EPA. Such reclassification holds the potential to substantially reduce the cost of disposal by allowing onsite disposal of concentrated brines. This would eliminate transportation costs and reduce the impacts of heavy trucking of produced water on roads and the environment. The overall effect would be to lower the cost of produced water.

Benefits
The oil and gas industry benefits greatly by cost and labor-saving management programs geared to improving the speed and efficiency of the permitting process. Various aspects of current and past NETL Oil and Gas Environmental Solutions Program projects have piloted electronic permitting; enabled access to information on regulations, new laws, and responsible agencies; and compiled large, widely scattered data collections into comprehensive, user-friendly databases.

Providing sound science to assist EPA to update or change environmental regulations benefits the environment as well as oil and gas producers, such as the provision of low-cost water for beneficial use. Pilot programs funded by DOE have spread to many states, and electronic data sharing and permitting processes have improved the efficiency and accuracy of environmental regulations, thus saving industry, state, and federal agencies millions of dollars in time and labor.

The benefits for the U.S. public from the Oil & Natural Gas Environmental Solutions Program are a more competitive, economically viable U.S. energy industry that can supply an adequate amount of energy while simultaneously reducing environmental risks associated with oil and gas production and processing. Reduced costs and improved environmental protection technologies will result in more of America’s oil and gas being produced, which will lead to a better quality of life for America’s citizens.