State Innovation Grant Program: Louisiana
Louisiana Multimedia Oil and Gas Production Environmental Results Program
(2006 Competition)
led by state environmental agencies to test innovative approaches for
achieving better environmental results and improved efficiency in permitting
programs. Between 2002 and 2007, the State Innovation Grant program
competition awarded over six million dollars to support 35 state projects that
test permitting innovation for a variety of regulated entities including several
small business sectors. Asummary of the awards by year appears in the table
below.
State Innovation Grant Program Statistics, 2002-2007
Competition Proposals Proposals Total Program
Year Submitted Selected Funding ($)
2002/2003
$618,000
$1.425 Million
$1.479 Million
Cumulative
$1.243 Million
$1.611 Million
$6.376 Million
Project Background:
Louisiana has over 43,000 active oil and natural gas wells and
thousands of facilities that produce, process, and transport oil
and natural gas from these sites. This large number of facilities
is dominated by small businesses, representing over 70 percent
of facilities permitted or otherwise regulated by the Air and
Water programs of the Louisiana Department of
Environmental Quality (LADEQ). Many of these facilities
may not have permits and operate without proper monitoring,
record keeping, or best management practices. LADEQ has
concerns over the effectiveness of current approaches in achieving
environmental improvement in this sector and the resources
invested to date in regulating these facilities . This concern is
amplified by the impacts of LIurricanes Katrina and Rita on the
State's economy, resulting in a reduction in the Department's
resources that will continue for the foreseeable future. There is
also strong industry interest in LADEQ's adoption of a
comprehensive multi-media approach to environmental
regulation, and strong community interest in improving facility
regulation to protect public heath and the environment. In
light of these concerns and shrinking resources, the State needed
to develop innovative and effective environmental improvement
tools.
"Innovation in Permitting" has been the theme of the State Innovation Grant
competition since its inception. In the last three competition cycles states
received awards for projects in the following three categories:
• The Environmental Results Program (ERP) is an innovative
approach to improving environmental performance based on a system
of the interlocking tools of compliance assistance, self-certification
(sometimes, where permissible, in lieu of permitting), and
statistically-based measurement to gauge the performance of an entire
business sector. The program utilizes a multimedia approach to
encourage small sources to achieve environmental compliance and
pollution prevention. (See: http://www.epa.gov/permits/erp/)
• Environmental Management System (EMS) is a system involving a
continual cycle of planning, implementing, reviewing and improving the
processes and actions that an organization undertakes to meet its
business and environmental goals. EMSs provide organizations of all
types with a structured system and approach for managing environmental
and regulatory responsibilities to improve overall environmental
performance and stewardship. (See: www.epa.gov/ems/info/index.htm)
• Performance Track is a partnership that recognizes top
environmental performance among participating US facilities of all types,
sizes, and complexity, both public and private.
(See: http://www.epa.gov/performancetrack/)
NCEI has provided awards also for projects testing watershed-based permitting,
and for permit process streamlining in past competitions. For more information
on the history of the programs, including information on solicitations, state
proposals, and project awards, please see the EPA State Innovation Grants
website at htto://www.eDa.aov/innovation/statearants
Project Description
LADEQ will replace the traditional permitting process with an
Environmental Results Program (ERP) and consolidate the air
and water permitting and regulatory requirements for the oil
and gas production industry into a multi-media, self-certification,
compliance assistance, and statistically-based auditing program.
The ERP program will further the State's goals of improving
environmental stewardship by participating oil and gas
production facilities while reducing the permitting and financial
burden, and providing regulatory flexibility-.
To implement the ERP program for the oil and gas sector,
LADEQ will work collaboratively with the Louisiana
Department of Natural Resources (LDNR), which also regulates
many of the same facilities in this sector, to exchange information
on existing wells and processing facilities.
This project consists of three phases:
(1) Development of a facility database and stakeholder
outreach
LADEQ is developing a database for tracking the identity of all
NCEI
NATIONAL CENTER FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATION
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oil and gas production facilities within the state and their permit
compliance data. LADEQ and the LDNR are collaborating with
state and local economic development agencies, local chambers of
commerce, local community groups, and trade associations to
complete this task. Each Agency in this collaboration hopes to
reduce the administrative burden associated with collection and
management of high-quality compliance data.
(2) Measurement of baseline compliance and development
and application of compliance assistance materials
This phase will last approximately one year and will initiate
regulatory inspection of a statistically-based sampliiigof the state's
oil and gas facilities to establish an initial assessment of compliance
rates. These initial assessments will not be official enforcement
inspections, and violations discovered under these assessments
will be addressed under the enforcement discretion policy developed
under Phase I.
Concurrently, the LADEQ is collaborating with external
stakeholders to develop Environmental Business Practice
Indicators (EBPI), which will provide information on sector
compliance for use by operators and establish compliance and
environmental results goals. In addition, inspectors will educate
operators and provide facility owners/operators with copies of
the self-certification workbook, compliance forms, and fact sheets
for their use in returning to, or maintaining compliance, and self-
certifying their performance. Training workshops will also be
provided for facility operators to help them understand and address
all applicable federal and state environmental regulations, as well
as requirements of the program, including the adoption of best
management practices and pollution prevention and waste
reduction methods. Owners/operators will be encouraged to
attend these compliance assistance workshops. A web-based system
will be implemented to accept and document the submittal of
self-certification reports by the state's oil and gas owners and
operators.
(3) Assessment of compliance improvement through post-
compliance inspections
This phase focuses on implementation of the program and will
require approximately one year to complete. During this phase,
LADEQ will complete the web-based information system.
LADEQ anticipates that, at least initially, it will receive hard copy
of the self-certifications from participants and LADEQ staff to
review them for completeness and accuracy before they manually
enter the information into the database.
Final compliance assessment inspections will be conducted at a
statistically selected sample of sites to gather performance measure
data for the assessment of the accuracy of self-certifications and to
confirm rates of compliance. LADEQ will compare to post-
implementation assessment with the baseline compliance data to
determine the success of the ERP program in improving
environmental performance.
The project will be completed by LADEQ in approximately three
years.
Connection to EPA's Goals
This ERP focuses on priority environmental issues by targeting
an industry sector with significant potential for environmental
releases and emissions. LADEQ's Oil and Gas Sector ERP
Program will address EPA's strategic goals (Goal 1) by improving
outdoor air quality through the reduction of emissions from oil
and gas wells, and (Goal 2) by improving water quality through
increased monitoring and regulation of oil and gas wells. The
project also supports EPAs strategic goal (Goal 5) of promoting
compliance and environmental leadership through innovation.
Project Contacts:
For more specific information on the Arizona State
Innovation Grant, please contact one of the individuals
below:
Melissa Lantz
Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality
602 N. Fifth Street
Baton Rouge, LA 70802
(225) 219-3618; FAX (225) 219-4083
melissa.lantz@la.gov
Annette Smith
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency — Region 6
1445 Ross Avenue
Suite 1200 (MC 6ENXP)
Dallas, Texas 75202
(214) 665-2127; FAX (214) 665-7446
smith.annette@epa.gov
Scott Fontenot
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Washington, DC 20460 (MC 1807T)
(202) 566-2236; FAX (202) 566-2212
fonteiiot.scott (Siepa.gov
Program Contact:
Sherri Walker
State Innovation Grant Program
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Washington, DC 20460 (MC1807T)
(202)-566-2186; FAX (202) 566-2220
walker.sherri@epa.gov
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Policy,
Economics and Innovation
(1807T)
November 2007
EPA-100-F-07-044
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