New Mexico needs to drop harmful exemptions from air pollution rules for oil and gas sites

The Clean Air Task Force asserts that draft rules from the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) contain exemptions that would allow a large portion of oil and gas sites to avoid emissions reduction requirements. By analyzing NMED's own helicopter flyover surveys from 2019 and 2020, the authors found that at least 57% of sites with large, visible emissions would be exempt under the draft rules, specifically those with calculated potential volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions of less than 15 tons per year.

• Analysis of NMED helicopter flyover surveys from 2019 and 2020 indicates that at least 57% of oil and gas sites with large, visible emissions would be exempt from meaningful requirements to reduce emissions under the draft NMED rules.
• The draft rules include an exemption for sites with calculated potential emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC) of less than 15 tons per year (tpy).
• The NMED assumes that only 2,402 wellpads out of over 51,000 oil and gas wells in New Mexico have sufficient potential emissions to justify leak inspections and other reduction measures, a premise the authors contest using infrared camera footage.

APA

McCabe, D., & Feldman, L. (2021). New Mexico needs to drop harmful exemptions from air pollution rules for oil and gas sites. Clean Air Task Force. https://www.catf.us/2021/04/new-mexico-needs-to-drop-harmful-exemptions-from-air-pollution-rules-for-oil-and-gas-sites/

Chicago

McCabe, David, and Lesley Feldman. New Mexico needs to drop harmful exemptions from air pollution rules for oil and gas sites. Clean Air Task Force, 2021. https://www.catf.us/2021/04/new-mexico-needs-to-drop-harmful-exemptions-from-air-pollution-rules-for-oil-and-gas-sites/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=McCabe |first1=David |last2=Feldman |first2=Lesley |title=New Mexico needs to drop harmful exemptions from air pollution rules for oil and gas sites |publisher=Clean Air Task Force |date=5 April 2021 |url=https://www.catf.us/2021/04/new-mexico-needs-to-drop-harmful-exemptions-from-air-pollution-rules-for-oil-and-gas-sites/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{mccabe2021new, author = {McCabe, David and Feldman, Lesley}, title = {{New Mexico needs to drop harmful exemptions from air pollution rules for oil and gas sites}}, publisher = {Clean Air Task Force}, year = {2021}, month = apr, url = {https://www.catf.us/2021/04/new-mexico-needs-to-drop-harmful-exemptions-from-air-pollution-rules-for-oil-and-gas-sites/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }