HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania's Environmental Quality Board generated controversy Wednesday by approving new rules for oil and gas drilling companies over the objections of legislators.

The EQB-approved rule changes for unconventional drillers would ban open-air storage pits, establish minimum setback distances from schools and playgrounds, and add new rules for well monitoring and spill cleanup activities.

The changes also would make the permitting process more rigorous for drillers operating close to certain areas and natural resources — such as barring a central storage tank from being within 300 yards of a school building or playground.

The last time the rules were revised was 2001. Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Quigley called the EQB's action, which were based on a process begun in 2013, long overdue.

“The changes are incremental, balanced, and appropriate, and are the result of one of the most transparent and engaged public processes in the history of the agency,” Quigley said in a news release.

He said the changes would improve protection of water resources, protect public health and safety and improve data management regarding oil and gas drilling.

But industry advocates disagree, and some legislators representing Butler County say they're concerned and want to see the changes vetted in the state House and Senate or nullified entirely.

David Spigelmyer of Cranberry Township, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, has called the rule changes a multi-billion-dollar blunder. In January Spigelmyer said enacting the rules would cost nearly $2 billion annually for the cost of compliance.

Mike Rader, a spokesman for state Sen. Elder Vogel, R-47th, said the senator, who is on the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, wants to see the rule changes discussed further.

“We're concerned about the regulations, concerned about the process,” Rader said. “He (Vogel) would like to see this come before the committee and the committee have a dialogue on it.”

The EQB's approval of the rule changes Wednesday isn't the final word. Its action sends the updates to the state Independent Regulatory Review Commission, and then on to both the House and Senate Environmental Resources and Energy committees.

In addition to Vogel, state Sen. Scott Hutchinson, R-21st, is on the senate committee. He called the rule changes “a death knell” for smaller, convectional oil and gas drillers, which would have to follow the stricter statutes.

Conventional drillers use vertical wells to tap underground reserves of natural gas, while unconventional drilling delves deeper into the ground and uses horizontal drilling and injections of water to fracture rock formations where natural gas and oil are trapped.

Hutchinson called both the regulations and the process by which they were created “truly an overreach.”

“There are common sense problems with the actual regulations themselves,” Hutchinson said. “In addition, this time there are major process questions.”

Critics, including Hutchinson, say DEP officials failed to adequately follow a 2014 legislative order to develop separate rules for the conventional and unconventional drilling industries.

State representatives Jim Marshall, R-14th, Jeff Pyle, R-60th, and Jaret Gibbons, D-10th, serve on the House's committee. Gibbons said he, too, has concerns about the impact the new regulations would have on the natural gas industry.

“Conventional drilling has existed in (Pennsylvania) for decades, and these regulations need to take into account the drastic difference between this and the more recent unconventional drilling,” Gibbons said.

He added that the chairman of the House committee, Rep. John Maher, R-Upper St. Claire, has “indicated” that hearings on the new regulations are likely soon.

Rader said that the senate committee had not yet scheduled hearings on the changes, and there was no immediately available timeline for that committee's review of the matter.

Hutchinson said the independent review commission would have to complete its review of the rule changes before the senate committee begins its review.

He pledged to fight the rule changes in both the review committee and in the legislative committees, but said it's rare for opposition to even make it that far.

“They've got all the marbles, is the problem. In my 24 years, I can't think of one regulation that was rejected that way,” said Hutchinson, who is a former chairman of the House committee. “We're going to do our best to stop these from happening.”

To read more about the EQB's process and the rules they approved on Wednesday, visit: bit.ly/1VUyCi7.