There are proven, low-priced ways to reduce methane pollution from oil and gas production, and we need to make sure they are used. The request will require the companies to inform the EPA about their emissions and technology they could use to stop methane leaks.
Advertisement
The Obama administration, yielding to environmentalists, is issuing limits on methane emissions from oil and gas wells that are even tougher than those it proposed previous year.
The steps are part of the Obama administration’s strategy to cut methane emissions 40 to 45 percent below 2012 levels by 2025, the EPA said, and forms a key part of the US plan to meet its Paris climate agreement pledge.
“Imposing a one-size-fits-all scheme on the industry could actually stifle innovation and discourage investments in new technologies that could serve to further reduce emissions”, Isakower said in a press release.
WASHINGTON-The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday issued the first-ever federal standards aimed at curbing methane emissions from the oil and natural gas industry, the latest in a series of regulations the Obama administration is pursuing in an effort to clamp down on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.
Colorado environmental advocates are hailing the Environmental Protection Agency’s just-finalized methane emissions rule even though the federal oil and gas industry regulations are unlikely to affect operators in the state. At least one-third of human-caused methane emissions in the USA come from the oil and gas industry.
Petroleum industry groups have long argued that the methane rules aren’t needed because producers have been steadily reducing methane emissions at their facilities.
Methane tends to escape at various points of the drilling process for natural gas and oil drilling, and the rule requires industry to find and fix leaks and limit emissions from equipment involved in the transmission process.
The agency said it bolstered much of the original proposal by removing exceptions for low-producing wells, expanding leak monitoring and requiring quicker repairs for leaks. The final rule also provides companies a pathway to align the final standards with comparable state-specific requirements they may have. The EPA estimates that the standards will cut methane emissions by 11 million tonnes of CO2e by 2025, higher than the draft’s projected 7.7-9 million tonnes. Natural gas that is recovered as a result of the rule can be used on site or sold.
“The U.S. oil and gas industry pumps out nearly 10 million metric tons of methane pollution a year from thousands of sites in communities all across the nation”, adds Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund.
The agency also expects reductions in both volatile organic compounds and air toxins, though the agency could not quantify those. A 3,900 USA tonnes reduction in air pollutant emissions – including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene – is also expected as a result of the rules. Ozone is linked to a variety of serious public health effects, including reduced lung function, asthma attacks, asthma development, emergency room visits and hospital admissions, and early death from respiratory and cardiovascular causes.
The EPA regulation covers new and modified natural gas sites but McCarthy said a separate rule for existing wells won’t be adopted before the end of President Obama’s term in office.
Advertisement
As of 2014, methane emissions account for 10.6% of USA greenhouse gases (up 11% since 1990). “Today’s action to limit emissions from newly created sources of this pollution is an important start”.
