Methane Equivalency Agreement; PM2.5 CAAQS Erratum

Summary#

This notice makes two corrections and updates from the federal environment department. It posts an Agreement on the Equivalency of Federal and Alberta Regulations Respecting the Release of Methane from the Oil and Gas Sector in Alberta, 2025 (available October 24, 2025) and publishes an erratum that fixes numeric values in a table for the Canadian Ambient Air Quality Standards (CAAQS) for fine particulate matter (PM2.5).

What it does#

• Makes the full Agreement on the Equivalency of Federal and Alberta Regulations Respecting the Release of Methane from the Oil and Gas Sector in Alberta, 2025 available on the Canadian Environmental Protection Act registry as of October 24, 2025. Contact listed: Clare Demerse, Director, Oil, Gas, and Alternative Energy Division, Department of the Environment (email: methane-methane@ec.gc.ca).
• Corrects Table 2 in the earlier CAAQS notice for PM2.5 (an erratum involving both the Department of the Environment and the Department of Health). The corrected table gives the air quality management “levels” (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green) with their ranges for PM2.5 concentrations tied to the 24‑hour and annual CAAQS for 2020 and 2030. The numeric values shown in the corrected table are:
  • Red: >27, >23, >8.8, >8.0
  • Orange: ≥20 and ≤27, ≥17 and ≤23, ≥6.5 and ≤8.8, ≥6.1 and ≤8.0
  • Yellow: ≥11 and ≤19, ≥11 and ≤16, ≥4.1 and ≤6.4, ≥4.1 and ≤6.0
  • Green: ≤10, ≤4
• The notice says the HTML version has already been updated. The PDF and registry copies reflect the corrected table.

Who's affected#

• Upstream oil and gas operators and regulators in Alberta. They will be directly interested in the equivalency agreement.
• Federal, provincial and municipal air-quality managers and public-health authorities who use the CAAQS and the air-quality management levels.
• Members of the public, researchers, and advocacy groups that track PM2.5 standards and local air-quality planning.
• If anything above is unclear about which numeric value applies to a specific standard (24‑hour vs annual, or 2020 vs 2030), the source documents should be consulted directly because the table layout in the notice is compact.

Why it matters#

• Posting the equivalency agreement lets people see how federal and Alberta rules line up for methane from upstream oil and gas. That can affect which rules businesses must follow and how emissions are managed in practice.
• The corrected PM2.5 table fixes the numeric bands used to decide when to act to reduce pollution or prevent deterioration. Those numbers guide health warnings, pollution control measures, and planning by governments and health agencies.