Colorado OKs Oil and Gas Monitoring Rules That All Sides Like

Colorado regulators approved first-in-the-nation rules requiring high-frequency emissions monitoring at oil and gas sites during the early stages of drilling.

Oil and gas industry representatives and environmentalists applauded the new rules (Regulation 7), which the Air Quality Control Commission late Thursday unanimously approved following three days of hearings across two weeks.

The rules require operators to monitor for gas leaks during pre-production, which starts with the drilling phase and ends with the return of flowback, as well as early production activities. Flowback is the liquid used in hydraulic fracturing that returns to the surface after being injected into ...