Discusses the potential effects of new environmental regulations under consideration that could affect the petroleum industry's contributions to the economy -- reducing investment in capacity and new technologies, making domestic refiners less competitive in the global marketplace, increasing imports of refined products, increasing consumer prices for products such as gasoline and heating oil, and reducing industry employment. Contents: current environmental requirements; future requirements on refining industry; and future requirements on transportation and marketing industry. Extensive appendices detail cost development models.
The purpose of this thesis is to exemplify the social and economic effects of environmental air regulations as related to petroleum refiners. The Clean Air Act, and subsequent amendments, have had a major impact in the petroleum refining industry. Likewise, the global climate change regulations have the potential for just as great an impact. The impacts have resulted in beneficial outcomes; reduced emissions, cleaner air, more efficient equipment, and even economic benefits through recovery systems. However, companies have spent billions in capital expenditures to adhere to the Clean Air Act and its' Amendments. The major conclusions of this paper are: Regulations should be thoroughly researched before implementation; Regulations should be based on sound science; Economic evaluations using all available financial assessment criteria resulting in a comprehensive analysis should be used; Government officials, industry organizations, and petroleum refiners should work together to determine a particular regulation's feasibility and consequential social and economic effects. As illustrated throughout this paper, regulations are needed but some have been, or are proposed to be, implemented before enough scientific research has taken place. The concept of scientific validation coupled with economics balancing has a prevalent undertone throughout the industry on any legislation. Air regulations are a social and economic issue. The social part consists of industry's role in improving the environment and refinery process, with public interests (and image) upfront. At the same time, these issues need to be economically worthwhile. This paper discusses the socioeconomic effects of environmental air regulations on the United States Petroleum Refining Industry.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was introduced on December 2, 1970 by President Richard Nixon. The agency is charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress. The EPA's struggle to protect health and the environment is seen through each of its official publications. These publications outline new policies, detail problems with enforcing laws, document the need for new legislation, and describe new tactics to use to solve these issues. This collection of publications ranges from historic documents to reports released in the new millennium, and features works like: Bicycle for a Better Environment, Health Effects of Increasing Sulfur Oxides Emissions Draft, and Women and Environmental Health.
Designed to introduce employees, field managers, CEOs, or lay personnel to basic concepts of the federal environmental regulations, this publication summarizes 15 federal environmental regulations and describes their impact on the petroleum industry. Included is a chapter on government documents, information on the ten most common environmental audit problems, a discussion of damage case histories, a chapter on oil spills in water environments, an alphabetical listing of abbreviations, and a glossary of terms.
