EPA to lift Obama-era controls on methane, a potent glasshouse gas

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration is expected in the coming days to lift Obama-era controls on the release of methane, a powerful global warming gas emitted from leaks and flares in oil and gas wells.

The new rule on methane pollution, issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, is expected to take months, and will be made public before Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke anonymously to prevent the official announcement in it occurs publicly.

The reimbursement of the methane rule is the latest move in the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to weaken environmental standards, which was unabated during the coronavirus pandemic.

In April, the EPA relaxed rules on the release of toxic chemicals from coal-fired power plants, loosened curbs on climate-warming pipe pollution and opted for a strengthening of a regulation on industrial soot emissions linked to respiratory diseases, including Covid-19.

In July, President Trump unilaterally violated one of the nation’s land conservation laws, the National Environmental Policy Act, and restricted public review of federal infrastructure projects in an effort to speed up the permitting process for highways, energy plants and pipelines.

However, these and all other regulatory changes made by the Trump administration in the late half of 2020 could be undone in the first half of 2021, if, as polls now suggest, Joseph R. Biden Jr. wins the White House and Democrats take control of the House of Representatives. This is due to a procedure of the First Chamber, known as the Congressional Review Act, which gives legislators 60 legislative days to implement major new regulations issued by federal agencies. In the early days of the Trump administration, Republicans used the procedure to overturn 14 Obama-era rules.

The EPA’s new methane rule eliminates federal requirements that oil and gas companies must install technology to identify and fix leaks of methane from wells, pipelines and storage sites.

EPA officials say the new, weaker methane rule is needed to free the oil and gas industry from what they call crippling regulation at a time when companies are suffering from stinging prices and falling demand driven by a sharp global economic downturn. However, the weakening of the rule has been in the works for more than a year.

Environmentalists called the move another blow by Mr. Trump to the planet’s warming climate, and came behind reversals of rules on climate-warming carbon dioxide pollution from tailpipes and power plants, and the United States withdrew from the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

Oil and gas companies have had mixed responses to the rollback. Some large companies have spoken out against the weakening of methane regulations – joining some motorists, electric utilities and other industrial giants who have turned against other administration initiatives to remove climate change and environmental regulations.

But smaller, independent oil companies are expected to applaud the rule as a welcome measure of relief as many have difficulty staying afloat.

Most climate change regulation is focused on carbon dioxide, which is produced by burning fossil fuels and is the most harmful greenhouse gas. Methane, which is a narrow second, hangs in the atmosphere for a shorter period of time, but packs a bigger punch while it lasts. According to some estimates, methane has 80 times the power for heating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere during the first 20 years.

Methane currently accounts for nearly 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. A significant part of it comes from the oil and gas industry, although other sources also include livestock and agriculture.

In August, EPA chief Andrew Wheeler unveiled a draft methane regulation, saying at the moment it “eliminates unnecessary and duplicate regulatory burdens from the oil and gas industry.”

Peter Zalzal, a lawyer at the Environmental Defense Fund, a group of lawyers, called the new rule “a profound misconduct” which “apparently complies with the agency’s legal obligations, and with the science that methane shows is a dangerous polluter. “

Lee Fuller, a vice president at the Independent Petroleum Producers of America, which represents smaller oil and gas companies, said that “the burden of the rule falls overwhelmingly on smaller, independent companies.”

“They have a rule that was written for all these larger companies,” said Mr. Fuller. ‘They would in principle continue to do what they are already doing. But these small businesses – that rule would just kill them. ”

Several of the largest oil and gas companies have called on the Trump administration to impose restrictions on methane, not to lift them. Larger energy companies have invested millions of dollars to promote natural gas as a cleaner option than coal in the nation’s power plants, because natural gas produces about half as much carbon dioxide as it burns. They are worried that unlimited leaks of methane could undermine marketing message and hurt demand.

In a 2019 public comment on a draft of the rule, Joe Ellis, a vice president at BP, asked the EPA to “continue to regulate methane emissions from new sources and adopt a rule for existing sources. EPA- “Methane regulation across the value chain is the right thing to do for the environment, will support consistent regulation in the US and can be achieved cost-effectively with new technology.”

Exxon urged the EPA in 2018 to maintain core elements of the Obama administration’s policy. Gretchen Watkins, the U.S. chairman of Shell, who urged the Trump administration to regulate methane emissions, said, “The negative effects of methane have been widely acknowledged for years, so it’s frustrating and disappointing to see the administration in to go in another direction. ”