The International Association of Oil & Gas Producers argues that companies can’t conform to the regulation in time — jeopardizing the EU’s energy security by leaving 87 percent of crude oil supply and 43 percent of gas non-compliant for import.
Critics say such warnings are overblown. The Clean Air Task Force, a nonprofit, says the IOGP’s forecasts are “a result of unrealistic modelling choices, conservative market assumptions, and a basic misunderstanding of what the regulation actually requires.”
Zombie rules
The EU executive has ruled out reworking the legislation itself. Instead the Commission has sought to balance industry demands against green ambitions by encouraging EU governments to “pragmatically” police the rules and take advantage of existing loopholes, as the draft guidance shows.
In the draft guidelines the EU executive says governments can grant companies broad exemptions from penalties for breaching the rules if an energy crisis develops. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images
The fudge has left no one happy. Green groups say the proposed flexibilities are so far-ranging that they will permit all manner of rule breaches on ill-defined energy security grounds, without setting clear limits to such exemptions.
The upshot is a “Schrödinger’s cat situation, where they can say the regulation is still alive … but at the same time it doesn’t have any teeth,” said Léa Pilsner, a senior climate policy analyst at the Environmental Defense Fund. “The very real risk is a zombie regulation, one that walks and talks but is structured in a way that it never has to be enforced.”
Fossil fuel executives are no more enthusiastic, warning that the Commission’s approach risks worsening the sense of regulatory uncertainty. Håkon Fonseca Nordang, a spokesperson for IOGP’s Europe branch, said that while the lobby group had yet to analyze the draft guidelines, “it is difficult to see how a ‘recommendation’ — however well-intentioned — can supersede some of the challenging requirements set out in the regulation itself.”