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August 29, 2019 10:10 pm

EPA To Roll Back Regulations On Methane, a Potent Greenhouse Gas

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The Trump administration laid out on Thursday a far-reaching plan to cut back on the regulation of methane emissions, a major contributor to climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency ,in its proposed rule, aims to eliminate federal requirements that oil and gas companies install technology to detect and fix methane leaks from wells, pipelines and storage facilities. It will also reopen the question of whether the E.P.A. even has the legal authority to regulate methane as a pollutant. Under the proposal, methane, the main component of natural gas, would be only indirectly regulated. A separate but related category of gases, known as volatile organic compounds, would remain regulated under the new rule, and those curbs would have the side benefit of averting some methane emissions. The new rule must go through a period of public comment and review, and would most likely be finalized early next year, analysts said. Over all, carbon dioxide is the most significant greenhouse gas, but methane is a close second. It lingers in the atmosphere for a shorter period of time but packs a bigger punch while it lasts. By some estimates, methane has 80 times the heating-trapping power of carbon dioxide in the first 20 years in the atmosphere. Methane currently makes up nearly 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. A significant portion of that comes from the oil and gas industry. Other sources include cattle and agriculture. The E.P.A.'s economic analysis of the rule estimates that it would save the oil and natural gas industry $17 million to $19 million a year. For comparison, the annual revenue of the United States oil industry as a whole typically ranges between $100 billion and $150 billion.

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